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THE TIDE 

OF 

DESTINY 


WILLIAM H. REYNOLDS 



Class PZ 3 

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COFliT^IGHT DEPOSIT. 







The Tide of Destiny 

A STORY WITH A PURPOSE 

''To cheer the lonely, lift the frail, 

And solace them that weepT 


A Popular Adaptation 
of The Great Fraternal Story 

OUR BROTHER'S CHILD 

By 

William Reynolds 

AUTHOR OF 
OUR BROTHER’S CHILD, 

LETTERS TO A MINE FOREMAN, THE PENALTY, 
THE PROPHECY, A CHANGE OF SONG, ESTHER’S BABY, 
ANGELS UNAWARES, THE DOVE OF PEACE, 

THE BRATTICE MAN, A VOYAGE THROUGH 
FIRMAMENT. ETC., ETC. 



1910 

Mayhew Publishing Company 
Boston, 



Copyright, 1910 
By 

William H. Reynolds. 





©CI.A271099 


The Tide of Destiny. 

Asleep y awake, by night or day, 

The friends I seek are seeking me; 
No wind can drive my bark astray. 
Or change the ^^Tide of Destiny N 


Dedicated 


To 

Robert Oakley’s Namesake 


With His Father’s Love 






jforetoorti. 

GREATER than our foresight into futurity the 
demand for this terse little Romance necessitated the 
issue of three editions in three years. In circulation 
and in theme it has, without any general publicity, 
outgrown our first intention, and evidently by sheer 
merit widened its own field. In a form suited to the 
universal reaches of its purpose we give it to the World, 
hoping that it may continue its silent work for good 
when the hand that wrote it will be forever stilled. 

For the ethical flavor of the romance we make no 
apology whatsoever. Be one never so rhetorically 
powerful, direct one’s effort with what moral force 
one may, individual life is so quickly gone, the never- 
weakening power of multitudinous evil in the form of 
greed, inherent or acquired selfishness, the cutting 
word studied or unstudied, so lasting and . prevalent, 
that the net result of Good Influence in any form must 
be infinitesimal, and the more obvious necessity for its 
prosecution. In the characters depicted we have 
chosen those genuinely human rather than angelic. 
Oakley, poor fellow, as do so many of his kind, was 
“winged” all too soon without our putting impedi- 
menta to his anatomy. Nearly as our pen can, we have 
represented the best of that class with whom we were 
raised and toiled, and the best among them equals in the 
essentials of manhood and womanhood the best any- 
where. Environment does not change the character so 
much as it adds “ trimmin’s” to it. If there be no gold 
in the rock the most intense furnace will not draw it out. 

William H. Reynolds. 

Forestville, Pennsylvania, 

March, 1909. 


The Following Poem Depicts Many a Name 
Unwritten and Unsung. Also Does it Forecast 
so Admirably what the Reader may Expect in the 
Chief Male Characters of the Following Story 
THAT We Imprint it Here. 

ABOU BEN AD HEM. 

Abou Ben Adhem , (may his tribe increase) 

Awoke one night from a deep dream 0} peace ^ 

And saw within the moonlight in his room, 

Making it rich, and like a lily in bloom, 

An angel writing in a book of gold. 

Exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold, 

And to the presence in the room he said, 

^^What writest thou?^^ The vision raised its head. 
And with a look made all of sweet accord. 

Answered, ‘‘ The names of those who love the Lord.^^ 
^^And is mine oneV'‘ said Abou. ^^Nay, not so,^^ 
Replied the angel. Abou spoke more low. 

But cheerly still; and said, pray thee then. 

Write me as one that loves his fellowmenJ^ 

The angel wrote and vanished. The next night 
It came again with a great wakening light. 

And showed the names whom love of God had blessed 
And lo: Ben Adhem^s name led all the rest. 

Leigh Hunt. 


CONTENTS. 


Page 

Chapter I. An Accident . . . i 

Chapter II. The Young Woman In The 

Case .... 8 

Chapter III. A Scene At Sontag’s Board- 
ing House . . . 14 

Chapter IV. And What Became Of It . 25 

Chapter V. An Unlawful Passion . 34 

Chapter VI. “Somebody’s Wife” 44 

Chapter VII. The Friendless . . 57 

Chapter VIII. A New Idol At The Shrine 

Of Love ... 76 

Chapter IX. A Little Brooch . . 86 

Chapter X. “ Peddle Or Starve ” 100 

Chapter XI. Beneath A Willow Tree . 114 

Chapter XII. A Dark Red Rose , . 132 


t!Cf)e Cibe of 

Being 

A Brief Romance in Which is Depicted More or 
Less Faithfully Certain Things Which Happened 
During the Life of One of God’s Noblemen. 


I. 


An Accident. 

expect to pass through this world hut once; any 
good thing, therefore, that I can do, or any kindness that 
I can show any fellow human being, let me do it now. 
Let me not neglect nor defer it, for I shall not pass this 
way again.^^ 

Mantel-piece Inscription. 


A BOUT six o’clock of the morning, in the early 
part of the winter in the year 1893, two men 
entered a waiting train in the old Union Depot in Pitts- 
burgh, Pennsylvania. One proved later to be a doctor, 
the other a manufacturer, the former buoyant, 
healthy, young, the latter aged, careworn, white-haired. 
They entered the same seat in the coach, and spoke 
to each other as acquaintances do. The physician 
remarked his companion’s weary, downcast appear- 
ance, and between puffs of a cigar he was lighting 
asked him if he were “still trying.’’ 


2 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


Still tryin', Lowden,” the elder of the two echoed, 
voice vibrant with age, infirmity and long continued 
sorrow. “A message from the Agency called me down 
yesterday, an’ I was wi’ them till mornin’, an’ stayed 
at Boyers’ the neecht. An’ to nae purpose to tell of. 
We’re sure the gal laft the West, an’ cam’ East 
but whear?” 

The old man laid his hat on the seat beside him, 
too tired to reach up to the rack, and set his face to 
the window to watch without seeing the lights of the 
big city glide like dull comets into dark obscurity. 

The young man looked at the tired face a moment, 
and from that trained glance came a suggestion, born 
of close friendship, that it was costing The Searcher 
much worry and suspense. 

“Aye, Laddie, an’ money, too,” came the response. 
“Detective sarvice costs money, too, lots of it, it does 
that. But,” came decisively, with a setting of lips 
unflinching in determination, “I’d gie harf of all I 
have; aye, all, Laddie, ane begin again.” 

As the old man said this he leaned back his head, 
and, following silence, fell into a semi- doze. The 
doctor pulled a paper from his pocket, and, with a 
casual glance at the other’s physical “indications,” 
as evidenced by the heavy pulsing in his neck, and the 
dark pouches under his eyes, fell into silence too. Even 
to him the ease of the car was soothing after a strenu- 
ous night, having been called by his alma mater to 
see a peculiar case which was operated on. 

For awhile they sat thus, when both men were startled 
by hissing air, and of a sudden the train stopped, so 
violently that it threw both up against the seat ahead. 


AN ACCIDENT. 


3 


The morning light was breaking, and figures moved 
in it down past the train’s last coach. The doctor, 
too, tumbled out, and McFarlane followed him, to 
pitifully gaze a moment later on the cause of the sud- 
den stop. 

It was a man. He lay bleeding, unconscious, on 
the bank where the pilot had thrown him. He was 
obviously a workman, as evidenced by his clothes, but 
nothing in the shape of a dinner being scattered around, 
it was assumed he was on his way somewhere to get a 
position. 

“Poor fellow’s got a bad bump,” said the doctor to 
McFarlane, bending over him, and binding as best he 
could the bleeding limbs; “and,” as if repeating to 
himself the various phases of a complete diagnosis: 
“been ill- nourished for a long time ... ex- 
ternal injuries not sufficient to cause such a pulse . . 

but the shock ...” 

As he recited audibly, as yet impressed with the ways 
of the medical college, recently left, the “symptoms” 
of the case beneath him, the young surgeon worked 
skillfully, and as conscientiously as though the result 
meant great financial reward instead of none, nor the 
most minute possibility tending to insure success 
escaping his notice. 

Oh, would the Preceptor’s ethical admonition 
to the graduating class remain with all, as, to the great 
benefit of The Poor and 111, and the everlasting credit 
of the Profession, it does with some! 

McFarlane, too, was intensely interested. He bent 
beside the young doctor, and peered closely into the 
injured man’s face, but, what with the blood. 


4 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


poor light, and his own fading eyesight, he could not 
see the resemblance he had thought at first glance. 

The doctor rose and spoke calmly as of a lighter 
subject, his words directed to the white-haired man 
who had followed him: ‘‘He’s in bad shape, poor 
fellow.” Then, more urgently to the group encircling 
the prostrate body: “Move out! Move out!! Let us 
lift him onto that city-bound train. . . . Here, 

you,” he called to one or two of the men, “give a hand 
. . . . to the caboose, of course .... ” 

Somebody flagged the train, and they put the injured 
man aboard. The white-haired man followed the 
group carrying him into the car, speaking aside to the 
surgeon. The youth’s resemblance to Another had 
opened wide the gates of human kindness in the stern 
old Scot. 

“Will this make any difference, Lowden?” he asked, 
holding for the doctor’s examination a slip on which 
was written something in a shaky hand. 

“It hadn’t ought to, but it m//,” the young man re- 
turned impassively. 

“Then, that’s all,” the old man responded, back- 
wards: “War, no more than hospitals, can go on for- 
ever wi’ out money. Lad,” attributing outwardly at 
least his benevolent act to the Broader Cause. “Gie 
it in — if he’ll live — if it’ll do good. . . It’s plain 
he’s nae a meelyunair.” 

The doctor smiled as he placed the paper carefully 
in his pocket, glad in his heart to aid in the poor 
stranger’s cause. He turned to his elderly companion 
on a good deed bent with a single note of warning. 

“It’ll be weeks, or months, McFarlane, if he^make 
it aFall.” 


5 


AN ACCIDENT* 

For once the depth of an oft ill-judged heart was 
laid bare. 

It’s nae deeference if it’s a year,” said the other, 
climbing slowly and uncertainly to the ground at the 
conductor’s call of “All aboard!” “May the Gude 
Mon an’ Human Love prompt someone to do as much 
for mine — if they need it,” he uttered fervently. 
“ One can never tell; one can never tell.” 

Oh! for the softening influence of Adversity! Why 
not before ? 

Almost simultaneously the two trains started in op- 
posite directions, conveying the young doctor and his 
patient back to the hospital from which the former 
had but lately come: the old man to a childless, 
wifeless home in the country south of Pittsburgh. In 
about a half hour the note was handed into the hospital 
office. Its wording was brief, and the name so well 
known as to make almost superfluous the attest of any - 
one, but its bearer had thought differently. 

It ran: 

“Until this injured man be discharged draw on my 

account at National Bank for any expense on 

this case, and this shall be your authority. 

Andrew McFarlane.” 

Some time later a reporter, notebook in hand, ac- 
costed an assistant house surgeon in the corridor lead- 
ing to the open grounds at the front of the hospital. It 
was obvious that both were intimate associates. Each 
equally youthful in appearance, and equally devil-may- 
care in action, while above them and about them Death 
and Suffering took anguished human toll. He of knife 
and saw was speaking: 


6 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


“His name is Roberts: G., I think.” 

The man with the note-book wrote for a moment. 

“That’s quite a coincidence, Doc.” 

The surgeon looked at him questioningly. Just then 
arteries were more to the point than coincidences of 
any nature soever. 

“That fellow hurt last night on the Pemicky had the 
same name, don’t you remember?” 

“Which one was that?” 

The question came almost with a smile. 

“The case Anderson fixed up,” the reporter replied. 

“Oh, yes, I recall the matter now,” returned the 
other. “That’s not so unusual, though,” he explained. 
“We frequently ‘cut up’ a pair of John Smiths.” 

“Also a few ‘Ladysmiths,’ ” jokingly retorted the 
other man, at which sally of irreverent wit both broke 
into a guffaw echoing at the farthest recesses of the 
housed tunnel. 

The remark was pertinent at that time, made so by 
a siege, prosecuted by the Boers, which our readers will 
remember. 

“We’ll admit the truth of that, also,” cheerfully re- 
sponded the surgeon, “but as far as your coincidence 
is concerned initials often suggest names which prove 
altogether dissimilar.” 

“Sure,” nonchalantly. Then: “Shall I write he’ll 
live ? ” 

“Hardly.” 

This last reply came in a tone of impatience. The 
doctor moved inwards as the reporter moved out, 
thrusting a cigar into his mouth and the notebook into 
his pocket at the same time. And with hat tilted 


AN^ACCIDENT. 


7 


backwards at about forty-five, and the cigar upwards at 
about the same degree, the newspaper man went quickly 
into the street. 

From the preparation room the injured man had been 
carried to the operating table, where, with dexterity 
and skill born of long experience, the surgeons plied 
their gruesome instruments. The quiet-footed angels 
of mercy flitted hither and thither, doing their share in 
the harsh yet merciful task. In a short time the yet 
unconscious body was placed in a private chamber. 
So far as the world at large was concerned the incident 
was over ; the acute stage ended, the chronic begun. 


II. 


The Woman in the Case. 

“ Then gently scan your brother Man, 

Still gentlier sister Woman) 

Though they may gang a kennie wrang, 

To step aside is human; 

One point must still he greatly dark; 

The moving WHY they do it; 

And just as lamely can ye mark 
How jar, perhaps, they rue it^ 

Burns. 


O UNNING from Point Bridge, where it joins cen- 
tral Pittsburgh to its western environment, is an 
incline, up whose steep way denizens of the heights 
above the city are carried. At its base was a row of 
smoke-begrimed houses, occupied, as a rule, only by 
those unable to dwell in a pleasanter location. I say 
was, advisedly, since later years, bringing to that por- 
tion of the city many improvements, have also oblit- 
erated the unsightly tenements. 

In one of those houses a young girl sat reading an 
evening paper. The step-mother, crabbed and im- 
patient with the group about her, was at that late hour 
vigorously rubbing over a washtub. A dark-eyed 
sister, very much like the reading one, sat by the window 
facing the street, and looking dejectedly out at the 
twinlding lights fast increasing on the opposite side of 


THE WOMAN IN THE CASE. 


9 


the Ohio. She was still dressed in the frock and apron 
that had garbed her during the day, having but a few 
minutes previously crossed the bridge from a factory 
where she worked. It was plain something out of the 
ordinary pressed heavily on the young woman’s mind. 
One at seventeen or eighteen, in good health, does not 
sigh nor appear downcast without sufficient reason. 
For several minutes she sat apparently oblivious to 
the others in the room, and was yet in the same po- 
sition when she who had been reading stepped quickly 
to her side and whispered, almost as if afraid to mention 
the fact aloud: “Helen, George’s hurt; see here!” 

The girl called Helen was apparently not much if 
any more than seventeen, but was plainly shocked by 
the ominous words. She seemed temporarily aged by 
work, or worry; perhaps both. Without speaking, 
unless we accept a warning shake of her head at the 
other as a silencing word, she took the paper into her 
own hands, already trembling and growing cold from 
the shock. She had hoped her sister mistaken: she 
found the fact there in all its glaring, heartrending 
entirety. She spoke in a few whispered words to the girl 
at her side, inaudible above the rubbing on the wash- 
board, and without speaking to the woman in the room 
placed a shawl over her head and went out. 

A half hour later Helen had reached the hospital 
where the paper said they had taken the injured man. 
The cold night air had revived her slightly, but she 
again felt a heart- sinking as she entered the big build- 
ing and asked an attendant if it were possible for her 
to see the patient. A few other words passed between 
them regarding who and what she was, then he went 


to 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


to someone else, and a little later came to conduct her 
into the accident ward, where, as she passed, her 
womanly imagination conjured pictures of suffering 
almost as weirdly tragic as reality later for her proved 
to be. For her the great building held only horrors. 
Her girlish eyes were blind to the father restored by 
skillful incision to work again for those who ill could 
spare him: to mothers’ lives prolonged to see the wee 
group grow to manhood and to womanhood: the 
fevered body, which would otherwise too frequently 
lie and fester in its filthy environment of the slum, 
cleansed and cooled, pay or no pay, and may- 
hap get well, perhaps through the furnace of suffer- 
ing refined and profited to the extent of becoming a 
better man or woman. Helen saw none of these silver 
linings which glint among much that is dark; in fact 
it was all dark to her. 

She and the attendant walked together along the 
upper corridor, and entered gently a little room situated 
on the right side. The nurse at the bedside beckoned 
Helen to be seated. Lovingly her eyes met those of 
the injured man, but no words were spoken. She had 
been forewarned; he was too weak to speak. No 
tears were evident, but a death- like pallor crept over 
the young woman’s cheeks as she looked on the form 
that only yesternight had clasped her in its embrace, 
now weaker than a new-born babe’s; at the lips which 
had pressed her own with the passion of manhood, now 
a ghastly blue and white. For a full minute they sat 
thus, not a sound breaking the stillness of the chamber; 
poor meeting, but better than none. 

In a very little while the sharp eyes of the nurse noted 


THE WOMAN IN THE CASE. 


it 


the ill effect of the girPs presence on her patient. She 
whispered to her that it was imperative that she leave. 

Helen rose regretfully, and more slowly than she had 
gone thence, went back home, where a still more diffi- 
cult problem awaited her solving. 

It is not for us to say this immature woman reached 
the right conclusion. She was young, without advice, 
or, if seeking it, received worse than none from the 
woman who should have been her confidante. Secrecy 
had bred secrecy, and some things which in a well 
regulated household would have been open to the 
knowledge of every inmate were known to two alone. 
And the young man in the hospital had done as he, too, 
thought best. Undoubtedly, could he have seen the 
trend affairs with him and the girl he loved were des- 
tined to take, he would not have been so importunate. 
But how many of us can speak to things we have done 
“all for the best” having turned ultimately “for the 
worst.” 

Between Helen and a haven of peace and refuge for 
her coming trial lay many, many miles, and as if it 
would help her — or him — she inscribed all her hopes, 
plans, ideas, on page after page, groping blindly each 
time she paused to rest for a more satisfactory way, for 
even the faintest hope that would lead her to stay nearer 
him. But after hours of struggling, like a man lost in 
a dense wood, she toiled only to reach the point she 
had started at. 

To her perverted perception there appeared but one 
course to pursue, and this precluded the possibility of 
seeing him for some time; perhaps not till he was well. 
The more Helen pondered the more difficult seemed 


12 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


the way before her, but the concrete fact remained that 
life where she was, under the circumstances, would 
grow worse instead of better, and end in a bitter crisis 
not to be borne. This was positively, painfully evi- 
dent; the other was only a possibility, as we shall ex- 
plain to the reader later. 

She sealed the letter and handed it to Jennie, the 
sister next oldest to herself. 

“Give this to George,” she said, “if he should get 
well and come out before I see him again.” To her 
girl- mind the plans, hopes and fears — and loving 
words — entrusted to her sister were safer far than 
reposing among the group awaiting many patients’ 
convalescence. In fact much suspense — we may say, 
misery — would have been saved Helen and George 
Roberts had the former been not older but more fa- 
miliar with the circle in which hospital usage revolves. 
But like unto many of her kind, in the city and country, 
the girl had an imperfect knowledge of such places. 
Pardonable ignorance. 

That night she and a younger sister went over to the 
city proper, and on the way Helen told the other that 
“George will be well in a few weeks, then you give 
him my letter when he comes over, and tell him to come 
out to Uncle 'Fred’s, and if he can get work there 
we’ll soon be able to ” 

A noisy clanging car shut out the rest. 

The younger girl promised, and the pair threading 
the maze of streets and wilderness of humanity were 
swallowed up in the tide of destiny and the blackness 
of the night. 

An hour later Jennie was at home, and telling the 


THE WOMAN IN THE CASE. 


13 


stepmother what had happened, and Helen was seeking 
the Peace that came not. That she had not left it at 
home was evident by an exclamation of the woman 
the younger ones caUed “mother,” when Jennie told 
her all she knew. 

“Then she’s gone there, to that old rip’s!” the latter 
anent an old score unsettled since the lifetime of Helen’s 
father at the time of second courting. Jennie nodded, 
and the other slammed viciously an open door. 

“Birds of a feather,” she quoted with a vicious grin, 
and a sing-song voice then added: “Good riddance 
. . . get ready for bed, you little devils 1 ” 


III. 


A Scene at Sontag’s Boarding-house. 

/ cannot know why suddenly the storm 

Should rage so fiercely round me in its wrath; 

But this I know, God watches all my path — 

And I can Trust. 

Anon. 

as we shall see, there was some method in 
Helen’s apparent madness in leaving the ex- 
cuse for a home. A childless aunt and uncle lived in 
a mining town a long distance from Pittsburgh. Helen 
assumed that, inasmuch as the woman kept boarders 
she would no doubt welcome her as helper to her sister 
Sarah, who had been with them for a number of years. 
She knew that the last letter the Furness’s had received 
from them bore the same postmark as those preceding 
it, and thence her journey lay. 

If my reader knows mining life as pertains to those 
who follow it, as well as the precarious calling itself, 
I need hardly explain that few industries are more un- 
certain. And the minds of many of its followers are 
even so. 

The lure of the new mine — always, if report be 
truthful, a bonanza in comparison with the old — the 
temporary or total suspension of both, the umbrage of 
a new or old official, these and a hundred other things 
combine to make the surface tenure of the underground 
toiler as indeterminate as his hold on life and health. 


A BOARDING-HOUSE SCENE. 


15 


One of these imps of adversity blocked Helen’s 
way; the aunt and uncle, and with them the sister, 
on whose companionship the poor girl had counted 
strongly, were gone to another mine. When the man 
at the station told her that, her eyes filled, and she went 
blindly toward the village. Then she turned and went 
back to the ticket window. 

‘^Do you know where?” she asked between sobs. 

“ Yes’m,” the agent nonchalantly replied in a rather 
nice crescendo, shoving behind his ear, meanwhile, a 
pen, and leaning back from his desk. Helen’s mop- 
ping made no impression whatsoever on the impassive 
face. Nor day nor night but joy or sorrow, usually 
the extremes of both, wring some heart or elate where 
trains come and trains depart and carry with them 
sundered friends. We know not a better place than a 
booking office if you enjoy witnessing the full scale of 
human emotion. 

“ Yes’m, ” he said, and stopped. 

He thought a moment, then exclaimed, “Sure; I 

billed their goods to ” mentioning a town about 

one hundred miles distant. “Want a ticket? Train’ll 
be in in thirty minutes.” 

Helen turned her face from the wicket, and fumble 
in her pocketbook. There were two pennies and one 
dime, and the fare was three dollars. She went out, 
almost without knowing why, her steps directed once 
more toward the mine town center. Once away from 
the station her mind became less confused. 

Helen had walked perhaps half a mile when, tired 
mentally and physically, she sat down on the edge of a 
plank walk running up one side of the village street. 


i6 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


She made inventory of her possibilities, and they all 
centered in the same thing: work — and there — and 
immediately. 

She was a brave little body, but the overwhelming 
chances looming too plainly against her made her 
heart-sick. Despite her every effort to suppress it 
she began to cry again, and was still crying when a 
group of miners and machine runners went past, big, 
strapping fellows, either one who, had he known, would 
in the largeness of the miner’s heart, have picked her 
up as he would a child, if need be, and carried her bodily 
to a haven of temporary refuge. Boylike, they are 
against all restraint, almost foolish at times in striking 
when there is no need, or scarcely any, but big-hearted 
and courageous to a fault, among them some of God’s 
noblest and most fearless men, ready at any moment 
to risk their own lives to save others. The very near- 
ness of danger and death seems to refine in the Ameri- 
can and British miner the dross of self. But not know- 
ing the girl they gave her but a casual glance, and went 
on. 

Behind them the air trailed strongly, oiled and 
blasphemous, and rippled with laughter and that spirit 
elation born of youth and strength and a day’s toil 
ended. 

Helen made up her mind that she would not let the 
next opportunity pass, and it soon came in the form of 
a counterpart of the taller of the group which had 
passed, yet lither in movement, having a more intelli- 
gent face — and cleaner — yet like them clad in blue 
overalls and jumper, and his cap also decorated with 
a pit lamp. 


A BOARDING-HOUSE SCENE. 


17 


Helen had risen and stood slightly aside. 

“ Good evening/’ she said, and he immediately raised 
his hat and slackened pace — then stopped. 

For a long moment it seemed to Helen his eyes 
pierced her, in his endeavor to identify her morally and 
by name. 

— I ” — she stammered — then again, ‘‘ I 
wonder — that is — do you know if there’s any one 
around here that wants a girl ?” 

Robert Oakley s face colored beneath the faint oily 
dirtiness, but resumed its normal function on the girl 
adding quickly — “to work for them?” 

“Oh!” he exclaimed; then, after a moment’s study: 
“No, miss, I don’t think I do.” 

Helen’s hand tightened on the rail running parallel 
with, and about three feet above, the boardwalk, and 
her face grew white, and her lips trembled. None of 
this escaped the youth. He moved a step or two — 
homewards — but the look of appeal in the girl’s eyes 
was obvious evidence even to him that her case was 
more desperate than it seemed, and she had stated. 
She told him a little of it — that concerning her uncle 
and aunt, and in return he confided in her to the ex- 
tent of saying he had not known them. 

“I’m half a stranger, too,” he laughed, and with his 
eyes bent on the girlish form: “but evidently better 
positioned than you — just now.” 

Unconsciously the two had started forward slowly, 
neither knowing to what end those steps were ultimately 
to lead them. 

“You might as well walk up toward the village, any 
way,” Oakley suggested, “and make inquiries.” 


i8 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


And as they went hunger made his strides longer, 
until he would suddenly bethink of the less large and 
less nimble feet accompanying his, and reset his pace 
accordingly. 

“I came here with a lot of new machines theyTe 
puttin’ in,” he told her with that lack of connected, 
serious thought characteristic of the young man whose 
whole soul has not yet been divided between Work and 
Woman. You one-fourth the time; himself, and his 
work — until he meet The Destroyer of Ego — four- fifths. 

“They sent me here from Indianapolis — the shops, 
you know.” 

Helen looked up at him, questioningly. 

“Then you — you ain’t a miner?” 

“Only half a one” he smiled; and, letting her dark 
eyes rise to the top of his six feet and more, Helen 
thought, despite her sadness, that a whole one must 
indeed be something of a whopper. Also she had never 
before seen but one man’s face she had liked as well 
and trustingly. Intuitively her inherent sex quality 
gave to her vision of his soul, and its index told her that 
that countenance would never harm her, and that 
anything those lips told her would be, as far as their 
owner could foresee, for her good. 

“Are you?” he questioned, and then coloring like a 
school girl, “that is, I mean, are you a miner’s girl?” 

“Father used to dig coal on The River,” she ex- 
plained, “but he died while I was little. Then our 
— the woman he’d married, took us to Pittsburgh, and 
I worked in the cork factory until — until — I couldn’t 
stand it any longer,” she turned, whether the home or 
the work she didn’t say. “Mother — that is the 


A BOARDING-HOUSE SCENE. 


19 


woman, I mean, often used to put me out at night, 
after working hard all day, because I’d hate to see her 
beat the kids, and would fight for the little ones.” 

The couple turned an abrupt corner, and went down 
a sulphur-covered road toward a big red house. The 
head frame of an air shaft darkly loomed above one 
side, and a nice grove of trees fringed the other. The 
house was considerably past the village, which fact 
came suddenly to the girl’s notice. 

She turned. “It’s no use me going that way,” she 
said; “I didn’t notice we’d gone past the houses.” 

The young man stood for a moment undecisive. 
Then he suggested: 

“ Come in, and I’ll speak to Mrs. Sontag — my board 
missis.” 

A slight hope was better than none. Helen went, 
and he led her to the rotund matron of “The Company 
Hotel.” 

Caroline Sontag was very busy. In fact the moment 
Helen and Robert Oakley entered her culinary depart- 
ment was a momentous one — or would be — if twenty- 
five or thirty mightily hungry stomachs were compelled 
to “bite” even a few minutes longer, owing to the inter- 
view, and it is a safe bet no other would have got it. 

But Oakley was, from the day he went there, of all the 
boarders a favorite. Not that he did anything in par- 
ticular to incur favoritism. He had at times tenderly 
referred in the presence of Mrs. Sontag to his dead 
mother, and sympathized with his landlady when he 
saw her head tied tightly with a white band. 

Nature had taught this mining boy that to win 
Woman’s love, if single, proceed as per circumstance 


20 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


and opportunity, if married kiss her baby — if she 
has one — and commiserate with her on her physical 
ills, if she has nothing more tangible on which to 
bestow attention. But he did it sincerely — as you 
must do — else she find you out. Other times he had 
met her half way when helping “Yoccup” with water, 
all of which endeared him to her heart. He was kind 
— to every body; at his tongue’s end a ready word of 
sympathy for the distressed, and it came as easy to him 
as barking to a dog. Yet with the best of them the 
boy would turn a fluent, limpid oath when nothing 
else proved available to full expression of what he felt 
regarding a refractory machine underground, or an 
uncharitable, sneaky act of anyone above it. With 
the rest of them he would take a drink of ‘‘red-eye” on 
occasion, usually “Fourths” and Christmases, other 
times but rarely, and never more than left him joyously 
sober and over-indulgent and kind. So if any of our 
readers, pursuant on such i;nformation as we have 
already given, have formed a wrong impression of 
Robert Oakley, and contemplated placing him in their 
list of saints, let them now and forever erase his name 
and their desire. This Child of the Mine was human, 
and fallible, with about as finely balanced proportions 
of goodness and badness as it is safe for any one man to 
exhibit on this earth. If he give more of the former 
it were as well to keep a weather eye open, unless he be 
of such as follow Christ in all things, even to sacrificing 
on the altar of Human Love the love of Woman, and 
the normal pleasures of a home and little children. 
But this class are good by choice and profession, and 
have naught to do with the wresting of reluctant strata. 


A BOARDING-HOUSE SCENE. 


21 


Mrs. Sontag wiped her hands on her apron, and filled 
a huge rocker which she kept in the kitchen as a re- 
minder of comfort, and idle times to come. She never 
used it, there, for the purpose it was intended. 

She smiled, a big, fat, satisfied, motherly smile at 
the pair, and Oakley returned the compliment. 

Helen was half scared, and could hardly acknowl- 
edge the introduction of “Helen Roberts’’ and “Mrs. 
Sontag.” 

But it all ended quite nicely at last; and when Mrs. 
Sontag was satisfied that Helen wasn’t Oakley’s girl 
nor his wife — which fact wasn’ t obvious to the woman’ s 
phlegmatic perception simply by the name bestowed, 
she assigned her to help the other girl. This she took 
care to assure her was more on account of Oakley than 
because she needed another helper. And although 
Helen Roberts was of a very sensitive and independent 
spirit, she was so hopelessly crushed just then by force 
of adverse circumstances that she allowed the matter 
to adjust itself, and set about doing her duty to the 
mistress and men of “ Sontag’ s Boarding House.” 

Thus The Wanderer became settled for the time being 
at least. Night waned to day, and even before dawn 
Helen was called to commence the daily grind of a 
mining boarding house. 

In the evening the men came up from the mine. 
Principally they v/ere men who loaded the coal into 
the little cars underground, put in holes they drilled 
the explosives to blast it down onto the mine floor, and 
heaved back the death-dealing slate out of the way of 
the “machines.” Perhaps half-a-dozen had to do 
with this latter phase of mining, Oakley among them. 


22 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


The men, not less than Mrs. Sontag, generally liked 
him. For favor or sullen enmity is allotted the new- 
comer in an incredibly short time where men come 
constantly in personal contact during and after working 
hours. Each man’s idiom is imitated, his fund of 
learning or lack of it, his physical prowess — judged 
chiefly by the amount of work performed — and the 
general peculiarities of the several personalities become 
as an open book. 

From the wash-room, situated in the basement below 
the dining-room, the men filed in, clothed in indiffer- 
ently clean clothes, absolutely clean bodies from the 
feet up, newly-combed hair and the agreeable aroma 
of pine- tar soap, all lent a feeling of buoyancy and 
general good-fellowship. Each sat in his designated 
place at the table — a long, oval thing capable of seat- 
ing comfortably twenty or thirty men — and without 
preliminaries discussed the steaming food. A few 
plates only lacked large pieces of meat — for the day 
was Friday, and the Catholic miner, swear as he will, 
is generally more zealous in his religious observances 
than his Protestant brother. But the paucity of pro- 
tein in one form was amply provided for in another. 
Fresh fish and eggs served in abundance made good 
the deficiency. 

Two newcomers were added to the number this 
evening, one of them named Bennet. 

The meal went on apace. The rapidity with which 
vast quantities of meat and vegetables disappeared 
would have brought envy to the heart of a dyspeptic 
millionaire. For a while silence, except for the con- 
tinuous rattle of knives and forks, prevailed. But the 


A BOARDING-HOUSE SCENE. 


23 


first sharp pangs stilled, conversation began, and be- 
coming general, many a hearty sally and sequent laugh 
added gayety to the meal. 

Helen had been put to serving the table, bringing 
thence as needed from the kitchen adjoining replenished 
platters of eggs and meat, or bowls of soup and potatoes, 
which she distributed at various points most convenient. 

Oakley and Bennet sat opposite each other, and at the 
moment Helen came behind the latter his plate was 
empty. And it was the sudden crook and out-thrust 
of his elbow, perhaps more than the carelessness of the 
girl, which sent splashing down his broad back the hot, 
greasy semi-liquid soup! 

It might have been because the roar of laughter which 
shook the table set the man’s temper afire, or perhaps 
he really meant what he said, but in charity we incline 
to the former supposition, that he retorted so viciously 
to Helen’ s“ I beg your pardon,” as she stooped to pick 
up the broken bowl. 

Other than that the great burly fellow said nothing. 
He pushed his chair back from the table, and ridded 
himself of the clinging cloth. Helen removed her apron 
and held it forth, even attempting herself to wipe the 
smudge away. He pushed her roughly aside, at first 
without speaking. Helen still stood there, not know- 
ing just then what else to do. If she went he might 
call her, and it was her duty to obey the men’s com- 
mands, if reasonable. She waited. 

Most of the men had resumed eating. It takes a 
very serious occurrence to dampen a miner’s appetite 
even when partly sated. Bennet threw his coat 
vehemently to the floor, and looked at the cowering. 


24 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


frightened girl as if he would like to take physical re- 
venge on her — or worse — Helen’s hand touched his 
chair back, her arm, bared to the wrist only, quivering 
with agitation. 

Oakley from the opposite side stopped eating, and 
watched sharply the melo- drama being played between 
these two, both almost equally strange to him, with an 
interest intense, if a rapidly changing color were a 
criterion. 

“Shall I take your coat and clean it?” came again 
in a slightly quivering voice, and Oakley remarked the 
same drawn lines he had seen on Helen’s face before. 

The man turned on her as a dog to another who 
tries to sneak his bone. 

“Go clean yourself, you dirty b — h!” he snarled, 
and went on eating as complacently oblivious of the 
result of his sentence as if he had addressed it to a mule 
in the mine instead of a sensitive human being and a 
woman. 

The girl turned away quickly, her breast heaving as 
she went through the door to the kitchen. 

The other girl finished waiting on the table for that 
meal. 


IV. 


And What Became Of It. 

Thy form benign, oh, goddess, wear; 

Thy milder influence impart. 

Thy philosophic train he there. 

To soften, not to wound, my heart; 

The generous spark extinct revive; 

Teach me to love and to forgive; 

Exact my own defects to scan. 

What others are to feel, and know myself a Man. 

— Gray. 


CUPPER ended in silence, as far as Oakley and 
Bennet were concerned. While the women gath- 
ered the plates the men generally grouped about a 
huge tree whose limbs overhung the dining-room yard. 
Some squatted for a game of seven up. Others picked 
out the evening papers from the heap of mail just de- 
posited on the grass by one of their number who had 
been to the village. A few of the older men sat on the 
stoop, plucking straws from a broom with which to 
cleanse the rank surplus of their pipes. 

Oakley wasn’t there. Immediately after supper he 
had gone to the kitchen. Helen and Mrs. Sontag were 
washing dishes when he entered, the distress of her 
mind plainly evident on the younger woman’s face. 

The boarding mistress turned as she heard his steps 
behind her. Helen changed her position to partly hide 


26 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


her face. Before Oakley had time to make known his 
mission the elder woman spoke. 

“Dis poor girl vas sdrange, Meester Oakley; she 
pe homesick, maype.’^ 

Helen neither affirmed nor denied her surmisings. 
Home doubtless was a factor in her sorrow, but a small 
one. Oakley tipped his hat as he approached her. 
He was the only one at Sontag’s I ever knew who could 
do it without obvious embarrassment. 

“May I speak to you a moment. Miss He 

started. 

Helen laid the dish from her hands and wiped them 
with a towel. Unconsciously brushing back her hair, 
she followed him to the door. 

“ Did you — did you — er — , ” Oakley faltered, 
half ashamed to broach such a subject. Gathering 
fortitude he blurted suddenly: “I suppose you heard 
what that fellow, I think they call him ‘ Bennet,’ said ? ” 

Helen’s face colored deeply. “Yes, I heard, but — ” 

Oakley surmised her meaning. 

“ You don’t want no trouble ? ” 

She nodded, her nod a negation. 

“Well,” he said soothingly, “I’ll see that you don’t 
have any — if he’ll apologize as publicly as he said it.” 

He looked over to Caroline Sontag for her approval. 
Helen was at the dish bench, her back turned to the 
pair. 

“What do you say, mother?” he whispered. 

Mrs. Sontag let her eyes range from the youth’s feet 
to the top of his heavy hair shock. She came closer 
with: “You petter do them dishes, Heleen.” 

The pair walked to the door; or at least one did. 


AND WHAT BECAME OF IT. 


27 


Mrs. Sontag waddled, but it wouldn’t have been 
healthy to tell her that. They stopped at the top of the 
steps, and Oakley whispered what had passed. 
had a mother, once ” he said. 

“An’ a seester?” asked the matron, with her hand 
on his shoulder. 

“And a sister,” he added; “two of ’em.” 

Mrs. Sontag thought a moment. 

“Veil, Heleen’s der t’ird . . . und dees is 

mine poardin’ house, und eef he’ll ’pologize don't 

. . . . und eef he won’t, do dott !! 

Her big, fat fist doubled, and hit the other a resound- 
ing crack. 

“ Dott vill learn heem to pe der gentlemans allretty.” 

Oakley was partly down the steps when she shook 
her big fist at him, and gave him a final order, mean- 
while rolling up her right sleeve and baring an arm 
like a shank a beef. 

“Gutt luck, Bopp! und eef you don’t lick heem you 
get anudder lickin’, und anudder poardin’ blace,” 
and Oakley went off smiling, knowing she didn’t mean 
it — all. 

Bennet was passing nearby as Oakley stepped down 
the path in search of him. The former was ahead and 
had just reached the large yard at the back of the board- 
ing house when Bob called to him. Bennet turned, 
and stopped. 

No other of our men at Number Four Shaft could 
ever compare with Bennet in bull-dog beauty. 
As he stood waiting for Oakley to state his business, 
his feet set well apart, his huge chest thrown 
well out, his shoulders squared, he looked the typical 


28 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


^‘pug.” A cutty pipe uptilted in his jaws, and almost 
burnt the edge of a cap set a la miner mode over the 
left eye. Jim Peterson only could take on a more 
belligerent expression, and Peterson’s was more acci- 
dental than natural. Somebody had gouged out an 
eye, and nature had made him baldheaded; and as if 
this weren’t enough of “fighting- mark” to add to one 
body, a premature shot one day made as many hiero- 
glyphics in blue across his mine-pallid features as the 
face of a Yucatan temple bears, and set his nose off at 
a one- third angle and left it there. Poor Peterson! 
he was a single man too, and deserves our pity. Bennet 
doesn’t, so we’ll proceed to make him take his medicine. 

When Oakley called he immediately stopped, his 
burly form looming against the fading light. The 
light was the only thing that made any pretence at 
fading of the three. It was quite obvious to Oakley 
that he had a hard nut to crack. But the big machine 
runner was no soft-shell himself — only with Helen. 
Here was somebody that was worthy all of his atten- 
tion. He got it. 

The men stood within two feet of each other. 

“That girl,” started Oakley, “is badly cut up over 
what you said to her.” 

“What the h — 1 do I care,” retorted Bennet, shift- 
ing his still lighted pipe to his pocket. The ugliest 
man treasures his facial beauty, be it never so small. 

Oakley tried vainly to frame words that would induce 
the man to care, to go to Helen and apologize for his 
utterance; but his tongue was utterly at variance with 
his desire. Several times he started, stammered some- 
thing, almost inaudibly, then stopped. His brow grew 


AND WHAT BECAME OF IT. 


29 


wet, and as he wiped away the perspiration Bennet 
broke into a leering grin. The smoldering fire leaped 
instantly into flame. 

“She deserved all she got said to her,” continued 
Bennet, abruptly facing Oakley as if to question the 

latter’s right to interfere, “ the clumsy b ! ” Then : 

“What cher goin’ ter do ’bout it?” 

Oakley stared for an instant strangely; his body 
trembled as with the ague. The air around both men 
was still and quiet, broken only by the subdued hum 
of voices coming from the other side of the house. 
From a lane leading to the pit shaft came the plaintive 
notes of harmonica reeds trilling sweetly “My Old 
Kentucky Flome;” strange contrast in so short a space: 
the boarding-house choreboy lightening his labor by 
crude, yet harmonious strain; within the house peace; 
without, men in all manner of relaxation restful after 
a strenuous day: within arm’s length two human giants 
glaring at each other, the prelude of combat glinting 
from eyes sharp as a tiger’s, muscles as rigid as their 
stare was tense. 

Oakley moved a step quickly, his clenched hands 
shot up, and, almost before the last foulness had left 
the other’s mouth, Bennet received a stunning blow on 
the face. “That’s what I’m goin’ to do,” Bob hissed, 
his voice a tremble, his feet moving him quickly to a 
more advantageous footing. 

For a moment Bennet staggered, but an instant later 
regained his equilibrium and composure sufficient to 
call Oakley a name reflecting on the character of the 
mother who bore him, and a title that no man cares to 
accept if spoken in anger. The words but added fuel 


30 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


to the fire of Oakley’s wrath, as Bennet spat them 
out with a mouthful of blood, and before his head was 
raised the men were locked in embrace that meant 
victory or defeat for one of them. Over and over they 
rolled, first one and then the other gaining a slight 
advantage. And in an instant cards, papers, pipes, 
were all forgotten as the certain noise of human frenzy 
reached the miners’ ears. Some — the older men — 
would have parted the combatants, but the most in- 
trepid among the crowd seemed not over- anxious 
for the job. To the younger men the affair was 
blissful. Their blood stirred at the sight. Anything 
they could do to urge the fight to a finish was not left 
undone, cheering Oakley, then Bennet, according as 
either gained a slight ascendency. The cause with 
them mattered not. 

Fully fifteen minutes the combatants surged forth 
and back, now up, now down, blood streaming alike 
from both. Of the two Bennet seemed the stronger, 
but was handicapped in agility. 

By a clever hold Oakley threw the other heavily to 
the ground, and, as he fell, fell upon him. Bennet’s 
head struck a hard substance, his massive jaws snapped 
shut, his face turned livid, his eyes rolled, his muscles 
convulsed. 

“He’s killed!” exclaimed several in unison. 

“Not much danger,” another prognosticated with 
a knowing grin, and a look of contempt directed at 
Oakley. “Bennet’s too tough a lad to be killed that 
easy . . . don’t worry, boys . . . don’t get 
yer shirts off,” he admonished the group bending over 
the man stretched at full length. “ He’s been in many 


AND WHAT BECAME OF IT. 


31 


a wuss scrap than that/’ came the contemptuous 
finality. Evidently the man knew him, and what he 
needed. “Bring him some ‘red-eye,’ quick! Some- 
body! !” Despite his assurance Bennet’s “butty” 
began to show alarm. 

One of the men brought water, but another was 
quicker with the miner’s panacea, of which Bennet was 
urged to drink nearly half a pint. The miner’s re- 
susciation is, like their lives, a strenuous affair. In a 
short time he raised himself to a sitting posture, and 
gazed in a dazed and sheepish manner at the crowd. 
Oakley stood at a distance, wiping away blood from 
his face. Bennet rose slowly to his feet and walked 
over to where he stood. 

“Shake, pard,” he said, quietly; “you’re the first 
feller to put me down and out.” 

Oakley took the proffered hand and shook it heartily, 
smilingly telling Bennet his coat was on fire. He was 
glad that matters were no worse; that Bennet had come 
out as he had done himself: apparently without seri- 
ous injury. 

The stir created by the incident soon subsided; 
“scraps” were not infrequent around the mine. The 
men, generally, resumed their play; Oakley went to 
his room to straighten up; Bennet went to the kitchen. 

“Dond you pe makin’ more drubble,” said Mrs. 
Sontag, as he strode towards Helen. The latter turned 
pale, but the elder woman moved quickly, frying pan 
in hand, between her and the cause of her discomfiture; 
and had you known Mrs. Sontag as I, you would concur 
with me that she and a frying pan were a bad combina- 
tion for anyone hunting trouble. In all probability 


32 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


the Trouble Hunter would be likely to find the game 
he was after. But as to the man’s intentions the women 
were mistaken. 

Bennet fumbled clumsily for his hat. ‘‘I’m sorry, 
Miss fer what I said in the dinin’ room; I’m goin’ to 
’pologize.” 

The color came back to Helen’s face, and Mrs. 
Sontag moved silently over to the washstand. Helen 
was trembling yet when she spoke. 

“That’s all right,” she said kindly; “you were badly 
provoked. I’m awfully sorry it happened.” Helen 
held out her hand, and Bennet took it in his coal- 
scarred and calloused own and clumsily bowed himself 
out. 


As far as Oakley and Helen were concerned the in- 
cident was apparently forgotten. Neither referred to 
it. Life in Sontag’s boarding-house went on in its 
usual way. New lodgers came and old ones went away 
to more congenial workings, real or fancied. As is 
the way of miners, some made a change at the end of a 
few months, regardless of conditions present or possible. 
Several of the mechanics went back to the distant state 
they had come from; Oakley, however, had had his 
stay lengthened considerably over the originally al- 
lotted time. To the most casual observer the cause 
was plain: he loved Helen. And here it is appropriate 
to say that Helen had done nothing to encourage it, 
other than show her gratitude for Oakley’s kindness in 
the only way open to her. 


AND WHAT BECAME OF IT. 


33 


It lies within the province of a boarding-house girl 
to do much for a favored one. This, where there are 
many young men and one or two young women, is 
sometimes productive of ill-feeling. This case, how- 
ever, was a pleasant exception. By common assent 
Oakley had fairly won the privilege of exclusive com- 
panionship with the new girl, if the new girl gave 
specific privileges to any one. Bob had clean towels 
oftener than any other whose duty called him amid the 
dirt and grease; the choice portions of meat were car- 
ried near his end of the table — accidentally, perhaps, 
but frequently — and trifles never before known to do 
such unseemly tricks crept between the bread in his 
dinner pail. Helen’s natural modesty precluded any 
demonstration of gratitude in more open manner. 
And, even had this been possible, visions of another 
she loved lying weak and injured in a distant hospital 
would have had a determining effect. 

From the latter, indirectly through her stepmother, 
Helen had received a letter on which the Miss looked 
uncommonly like Mrs., and the envelope falling into 
Mrs. Sontag’s hands first had prompted not a little 
curiosity on the part of the boarding-house matron. 

Mrs. Sontag’s knowledge of English was very limited, 
but she made out that much. Helen smiled and made 
an explanation which quite set at rest — temporarily 
at least — the genial mistress’s fear of a masquerader, 
and from thenceforward the two women seemed to 
have many more things in common, and got along even 
better together, having found, apparently, that they 
had an uncommon bond of sympathy regarding certain 
phases of feminine life. 


V. 


An Unlawful Passion. 

I stay my haste, I make delays, 

For what avails this eager face? 

I stand amid the eternal ways. 

And what is mine shall know my face. 


The planets know their own and draw. 
The tide turns to the sea; 

I stand serene midst nature^ s law 
And know my own shall come to me. 


— Anon. 


CINCE the trouble with Bennet, Oakley had tried 
several times to frame an excuse to get Helen 
away from the house. The mine boarding-house 
doesn’t offer the best facilities for Youth and Maid on 
tender phrases bent. She was affable when they 
chanced to meet, but the conversation was always of a 
general nature. But every word she uttered, spite of 
the frequent smiles, vibrated with a melancholic sadness. 
Oakley was of quick perception, and this deep-lying, 
and to him unaccountable, sorrow, grieved him. He 
couldn’t understand why one so young should seem at 


AN UNLAWFUL PASSION. 


35 


times so sad. Helen sometimes would cast aside de- 
pression; but whelming sternness, surprised and routed 
for the instant, would return renewed; exuberance of 
youthful spirit would vanish from her face. 

It was Sunday. From a point of vantage among 
the thick maples clustered back of the house Oakley 
caught a glimpse of Helen through an uncovered win- 
dow. She had been a frequent attendant at church, 
when at home, and from Mrs. Sontag had inquired the 
way to the local house of worship. Her work for the 
day was over, and Helen determined to attend the even- 
ing service. She had gone upstairs to her room which 
faced the woodedge. 

Oakley had come from a neighboring mine. Sun- 
day had made no interruption there in the feverish in- 
stallation of undercutting machines. The process, 
as was quite natural, had in it much interest for the 
young man. We may taboo ‘‘shop,” but our ears are 
ever alert for its familiar sounds. And the chief topic 
of all topics with the miner is mining in its varied 
phases. But as he turned the bend in the sulphur- 
covered road the matter of compressed air versus elec- 
tricity, as the better displacer of the human arm and two- 
pointed pick, became altogether non-existent. The 
great hole in the ground had been immediately filled by 
the vision in Mrs. Sontag’s window. For awhile 
Oakley stood still to watch it. 

A gentle wind, tinged slightly with the coming frost, 
wafted a sweet sound from distant bells. The day 
was declining, the wood’s dark shadow shutting out 
the red^disc sinking beyond the’^college town^to the 
west. It was this shadow cast by the leafy branches of a 


36 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


huge maple brushing her window, on which Helen 
had depended for the shutting out of obtrusive gaze. 
She made no allowance for the extra keenness of the 
eyes of Love, which in keen perception often give the 
lie to a proverb. The only sound breaking the almost 
virgin stillness came in a purr-like hum from the huge 
ventilators whirling rapidly above Number Four’s air 
shaft. Occasionally a clatter of hoofs and wagon 
wheels on the dusty streak of yellow skirting the north 
side of the village told of a farmer’s family conveyed 
over long distance to the house of prayer. The last 
peal from the bells died away; in a half hour they would 
ring for commencement of worship. 

Oakley walked rather impatiently, or, to be precise, 
in trepidation, out along the path he knew Helen would 
take, if her toilet meant negotiation of the two miles 
intervening between Sontag’s and the college town. 

The vision in the window still continued — unknow- 
ingly — to play with his heart strings. He sat down 
at length to watch it. With the aggravating slowness 
common to womankind, Helen adjusted her ribbons 
and furbelows, set on her hat, and having called on 
the other girl, and found her engrossed in a fictitious 
depiction of “A Young Girl’s Wooing,” stepped out- 
side and along the path which Oakley had taken before 
her. 

He walked slowly, very slowly, and she, assured by 
Mrs. Sontag that she would get there just in time to 
come back, walked fast. She overtook him round a 
turn, and the sly rogue stepped aside as politely and 
nonchalantly as if he had no idea of going with her — 
until then. Love is a shrewd dissembler in male as 


AN^UNLAWFUL FASSION. 


37 


well as female, and our miner youth learn, somewhere, 
the subtle art more easily than gaseous affinities and 
atomic weights. 

“Hello!” he said, “you goin’ to church, too?” 

“Yes,” said Helen, and wavered a moment. Then 
not finding in her heart any sensible reason for return- 
ing she pressed forward. 

“So’m I,” he returned emphatically, and walked 
ahead of her until there was room for them to walk 
abreast. 

“ It’ll be dark,” he suggested tentatively “and you 
can come back, too, with me.” 

The girl eyed him sharply with her piercing black 
eyes, questioning many things, uncertain as to all. 
She lapsed into silence and accompanied him on faith. 

They walked slowly over the intervening distance 
and reached church a few minutes late. At the close 
of service they returned the same way. 

The moon had come out, making the night beautiful. 
On the tree sides facing its light it shimmered silvery, 
transforming the sombre aspect of the dense foliage, 
and making even more beautiful the unusually fair 
features of Helen. 

Neither said much. Helen’s thoughts were far away: 
she was unusually preoccupied — this night. The 
church service, the song, and the melancholic atmos- 
phere on the homeward way all tended to depress. 
Robert Oakley was also preoccupied, but his thoughts 
were altogether of a different theme. Twice he had 
taken a strong- smelling stogie, common to the mining 
town, to his lips, and without lighting either, thrown 
them away. It is doubtful if he remembered doing so. 


38 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


The occasional touch of the soft fair body beside him, 
fragrant in her pure cleanliness and an uncommon 
delicacy as regarded an odor used in feminine toilet, 
intoxicated his every sense. Her silence — which he 
took all for diffidence, instead of rightly but a part — 
and the translucent ether which enwrapped that form, 
but added to the mystery and potency of Love. Several 
times Helen had been at the point of telling her com- 
panion certain things which would have undoubtedly 
broken the magic, and just as frequently the modesty 
and natural diffidence of girlhood overcame the 
prompting in the other direction, and she continued 
to speak only of other, and more general things. More- 
over, certain bodily feelings had raised an additional 
barrier between her and a closer confidence. Her 
acquiescence thus far to his will had been but a con- 
tinuation of the gratitude characterizing her every ac- 
tion toward Oakley since the ever memorable encounter 
with Bennet. In her heart Helen felt — but could not 
have explained to him had she desired — toward 
Robert Oakley exactly as she thought she would toward 
a brother having the same qualities. Had the young 
man been other than he was she would, no doubt, have 
found it much easier to be franker. 

They had left the highway and were crossing the 
fields intervening. 

By the path side were many Fall flowers, showing 
plainly in the moonlight. Oakley picked several as he 
walked in the grass, that Helen’s feet might remain 
dry on the foot- wide bareness. With a stem of timothy 
he entwined them and gave to her. 

“Thank you,^’ she said, “I love flowers,” placing 


AN UNLAWFUL PASSION. 


39 


them in a buttonhole on her bosom, and inbreathing 
deeply, as she bent, of their fragrance. 

“So do I,” Oakley responded, his strong heart and 
voice a-flutter with contemplated action. He put his 
hand near the flowers, and his fingers felt for one fleeting 
moment the thrill engendered by the female breast 
when The Virility of Pure Manhood abounds in every 
drop of blood, and the Man- Heart leaps at the Call of 
The Sex. The thrilling magnetism shook him as the 
mine current, but in a different way, but only for a 
moment. Helen pushed his hand vigorously away. 

Undaunted he attempted to put his arm through 
her’s, only to be repulsed. This dampened Love’s 
ardent flame for awhile, but not for long. 

They were again in the stretch of woods where he 
had waited for her. The lights in the boarding-house, 
which could be seen on the farther side, were nearly 
all out. They had lingered long, much longer than 
necessary for youthful steps to cover the distance trav- 
ersed, and much against Helen’s will. Several times 
she had gone forward, leaving Oakley still walking 
slowly, but becoming timorous each several time had 
waited his coming, choosing his aggravating dalliance 
rather than the possessive fear of Night. 

Helen felt poignantly — then — based on the mine 
country standard, the unconventionality of her allow- 
ing him to accompany her that night. Although in a 
certain sense the ethics of “refined,” “cultured” so- 
ciety do not obtain in our purely mining communities, 
yet emphatically not less virtuous are these women of 
the mines, speaking generally. 

The exigencies of locality and state require less ada- 
mant in the visible social fabric, and perhaps, in equity. 


40 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


more in that portion invisible to the interested ob- 
server. While we are not always right when we judge 
by motive, neither, unless they be also explained, may 
we give impartial opinions always if we judge by 
results. Being human gives us all the prerogative of 
erring. Helen was very human, and very young. 

For the first time she felt a vague alarm in Oakley’s 
presence; natural intuition leading her to expect what 
was too late to forestall. And she was right in her 
presumption. 

Somewhat nervous she trembled slightly, and Oakley 
mistook it for cold. He put his overcoat over her 
shoulders and she threw it off. Instead of daunting 
this emboldened him. He thought it the simple vagary 
of an immature woman, and followed up his action by 
asking her for a kiss, and added: “If you don’t, I’ll 
take it anyhow.” 

The girl burst into tears, and Oakley contritely 
asked what he had done to give offence, and she added 
to the puzzle by telling him, “ Nothing.” 

Following this both lapsed into silence, and remained 
so until Helen had regained composure and the pair 
a more friendly attitude. They reached the wood, 
Oakley suggesting meanwhile that he had an idea girls 
couldn’t stand to be far away from home as well as 
young men. “It comes natural to me, now,” he told 
her, attempting to fill in the long pauses in which she 
said nothing. 

He had to put in his time somehow, poor fellow. He 
was too intent on making love to Helen, and Helen was 
too intent on preventing it, to allow him to even smoke 
with ease. So that one word brought on another, and 


AN UNLAWFUL PASSION. 


41 


all of them his own, until he had told her all about him- 
self, his home, his late parents and the only sister living, 
and ever so many things a young man bent on gaining 
a young girl’s pleasure will tell her. I do believe he’d 
have told her the moon was green cheese if she would 
have paid for the lie by a kiss. But they reached the 
end of the wood, and Sontag’s boarding house lights 
came into view, which perhaps saved Oakley from be- 
coming desperate. He had but one card left and he 
played it. 

He ran ahead of her up the steps leading to the only 
door that was left unfastened, and, hand on latch, 
waited the girl’s pleasure to ascend and pass him. She 
sensed his purpose and hesitated, about them both the 
night silence, and in each a hard-beating heart. In 
one of the tree- tops an owl voiced his weird call, and 
the chug! chug! of Number Four Shaft air fan struck 
dully against the dark wood. 

“Are you goin’ ?” she asked, her face only half turned 
to him in the moonlight. 

‘•I’m waitin’ on you,” he added tauntingly. 

Then the pair again resumed their silence. Oakley 
evidently determined to compel her to pass him or 
make an outcry to Mrs. Sontag. 

At the start Helen was just as determined she would 
do neither. She still stood with her face turned only to 
him in part, afraid to turn her back on him. She had 
seen him leap down that flight of steps with a panther’s 
ease,his feet resting where she stood. She kept digging 
her shoe toe in the grass and he kept smiling roguishly 
down at her. 

“Are you cornin’, Helen?” he asked at length, with 
that characteristic familiarity of our men. 


42 


;THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


Helen continued to tear up grass with her shoe toe 
and say nothing. 

Then after a considerable length of time he flung 
down: 

“Tm still waitin’.” 

And she flung up, with the tiniest semblance of a 
smile at his audacity: 

“I see you are.” 

Oakley laughed gently at this, although you won’t, 
not being in the same position waiting for a kiss. 

Helen didn’t. She was getting angry. The air was 
sharply cold, which of itself would explain what is 
perhaps already a known truth to you, that Love can 
De cruel as well as kind to the object of its desire. 
Several times there came to the girl’s lips a sentence, 
but she, getting angrier ail the time, and being a 
spunky piece ot femininity, bit the murmured words 
in two and said aloud: 

“No! I wont tell him — now\'^ and still lower: “I 
should think that he could see — I am — ” Helen had not 
heard that Love is supposed to have poor eyesight when 
occasion demands blindness. 

“What did you say?” came quietly from the top of 
the steps; and from the bottom: 

“It’s none of your business, Mr. Oakley!” Then: 
“ Why don’t you go on upstairs ? ” 

The long form bent, and a low voice whispered: 
“Where, to Helen’s room?” 

This put the cap on the climax. The girl put a foot 
on the bottom step, and hesitated. 


AN UNLAWFUL PASSION. 


43 

“Come on/^ Oakley invited; “I’m trapper- boy* to- 
night.” 

He flung the door open, and Helen went up, mutter- 
ing almost beneath her breath, since she recalled vividly 
another scene in which he gave the lie to her words: 

“I thought you wasn’t a gentleman.” 

Evidently the youth didn’t hear that. If he did he 
was so intent on another purpose that he allowed the 
girl’s half-hearted insinuation to go by default. 

Perhaps desperate at the result of his first love-mak- 
ing Oakley placed himself in a good position to steal 
the favor he had been denied fairly, and he got it! and 
enjoyed its fleeting sweetness no doubt, and tried to get 
another. Helen didn’t, apparently, for stubborn to the 
last she placed her hand against his body and, with 
much sudden exertion, sent him with the nectar still 
on his lips, tumbling down the steps to the ground — 
that sward where Bennet and he had spilled blood be- 
cause of her. 

“No, you must not!” came the inflexible reply, and 
unchanging; which to Oakley, in view of the attitude 
accompanying, was entirely superfluous. And with- 
out further explanation Helen left him to reflect on the 
evening’s happenings, nor even thanking him for his 
courtesy in seeing her safely home. 

Such are the vagaries of Woman. God bless her! 


* The little boys who open the large doors for the mule-trains or 
motors to pass are called “trappers” in mine parlance. 


VI. 

‘‘Somebody’s Wife.” 

So many gods, so many creeds, 

So many ways that wind and wind. 

While just the art of BEING kind 
Is all this sad world needs. 

— A Postal Card Verse. 

the Monday following the incidents previously 
related, Helen sat in a room adjoining the 
kitchen. Eight hours had passed since the last miner 
had removed his pail from the bench and betaken him- 
self to the shaft. From now until supper’s preparation 
her time was her own. By Helen’s side was a little 
table on which she was writing to Roberts, in care of 
Jennie. The latter was an intimation that the ensuing 
week Helen would pay a visit, Mrs. Sontag willing, to 
Pittsburg, including in her itinerary the hospital and her 
former home, expressing hope that she would not only 
be able to see Roberts, but talk to him long, as she had 
many explanations to convey as to her actions in the 
past weeks. 

In the letter to her sister she placed some money, 
keeping only sufficient to satisfy her few simple needs 
until the next wage became due. She folded and sealed 
it to await evening, when one of the men, perchance 
going that way, would carry them to the postoffice. 

Later Helen resumed her labors in the kitchen. 
Several times during the afternoon the kind, motherly 


SOMEBODY’S WIFE. 


45 


woman with whom she worked inquired the cause of 
evident distress. She had, moreover, cast sly glances 
which caused a blush to cover the younger woman’s 
face, and a sudden adjustment of the wrapper covering 
her person. 

But feminine surmisings scorch the female mind. 
They must know. Since the first mother in Eden set 
the example, her daughters, famous, rich, obscure, or 
poor, have rarely made exception. Before supper Mrs. 
Sontag had ceased surmising ; she knew. To her Helen 
told the story none but herself and he lying in the 
hospital knew; and the elder woman’s face beamed 
smilingly as she heard the truth: she had anticipated 
other things. She bade the girl cease her troubling, 
the baby should be her child and theirs, so long as the 
father remained unable to care for it and Helen. 

Following her adventure with Oakley Helen had not 
gone from the house. Except at meal times — and 
very rarely then, for the other girl had of late been dele- 
gated by Mrs. Sontag to wait on the table — the dining- 
room never knew her presence. Primarily this had been 
prompted by surreptitious glances from the hardier 
male members of this transient household, and a surge 
of blood to Helen’s face which followed had remained 
until she reached the kitchen. Mrs. Sontag had noted 
this, and for some time past Helen had been sent up- 
stairs at meal time. Oakley she had studiously avoided ; 
and he, sensitive and proud as she, and in a sense peni- 
tent for his Sabbath escapade with the girl, had not 
urged his company; and thus matters stood, awaiting 
the coming crisis in more than one life. 

It was Saturday afternoon. The week-end holiday 
had brought the miners out earlier than usual. Nearly 


46 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


all were busily engaged shaving, shining shoes, or tidy- 
ing clothes preparatory to an evening in the nearby 
town, or for their trip home — if married. 

Helen, waiting them to vacate their rooms, sat for a 
few minutes’ rest in one she had just completed cleaning. 
On a chair, where she had thrown it while sweeping, 
lay a city paper. She picked it up to read until the 
men in the room adjoining should be gone. The usual 
fires, murders, accidents, and politics, which every day 
occupy so much space in the chronicle of human events, 
she glanced rapidly over, yet many of them were horri- 
fying news items. 

The girl’s attitude as these stereotyped phrases in 
which the papers tell of this or that life being “ground 
out by an engine running light,” or “ the man stepped 
onto the north bound rails without noticing the flyer 
coming south,” may best be characterized as languid. 
To the average reader they are so frequent in appear- 
ance as to become monotonous, doubtless a part in 
God’s Great Scheme that poignant sorrow shall not be 
universal in specific case. In these extremes of human 
misery each must bear his or her own soul burden, cry 
he never so soul-rending when the burden unexpected 
fall. The four line paragraph which to your eye brings 
no tear, to your body no tremor, wrings, so to speak, 
tears of blood from some other soul vitally interested. 
It was one of these which suddenly passed before 
Helen’s eyes. Almost hidden among other articles it 
lay singing silently its ominous note: 

The’ body of George Roberts, a man who died recently at 

Hospital from injuries received”on the P. M. Y. & C. Railroad, was 
buried by the City Authorities to-day. The man had given no ad- 
dress, and^no one claimed^hislbody. 


SOMEBODY^S WIFE. 


47 


The paper was a week old ! 

The shock came to Helen as a swift-moving metallic 
object does to a human body. At first the girl just sat 
there, numbed, not sensing the full depth of her wound. 
She looked again at this conveyor of ill, as she had done 
one night before, then she dropped the printed sheet 
with an exclamation to her God, and started involun- 
tarily toward human aid. She started for Mrs. Sontag; 
she nearly reached the door and fainted. 

Helen Roberts had for good cause looked on this 
woman as a daughter toward a mother. And Mrs. 
Sontag proved worthy the title in the fight waged later 
to keep the young mother and babe from following the 
father and husband. 

One of the boarders heard her fall, and called up the 
boarding mistress, stating that ‘ ‘the gurrel’s in a fit, or 
summat!” and in a little while Helen came to herself, 
and the men were very authoritatively dismissed from 
further attendance. 

The boarding mistress helped her to make ready her 
own room. 

“ Dond vorry, Helen,’’ she whispered, as she turned 
to go to the dining room. “I get some hot vater, und 
some plankets, und send dot poy fer der doctor. You 
yust stay mid you room alretty — everyting pe yet all 
right.” 

Mrs. Sontag went down stairs as she had never gone 
before: elated with pleasurable anticipation of a baby 
being in the household, and depressed slightly by the 
obvious youth of the prospective mother and the shock 
which had made the girl prematurely ill. She reached 
the bottom. ; 


48 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


“Vere’s dot poy?” she called. Then, louder, Joc- 
cup! Joccup!” 

^‘Joccup’’ came. He was a little fellow who did 
many chores at the boarding house, being paid 
little therefor in the coin of realm, but much in care and 
good, wholesome food. His mother had passed away 
before he knew her; his father “batched” in a shanty 
nearby. 

Mrs. Sontag bent to the boy and whispered hoarsely : 

“Run vor der Doctor Myers, quick, Joccup; and 
dell him der gom quick to Meestres Sontag.” 

“Joccup” dropped his bucket, the contents spilling 
in promiscuous heaps on the floor. Usually this would 
have brought a resounding smack, or, at least, a hearty 
“dutch” scolding, but the lapse passed unnoticed in 
the present crisis. 

“Be you sick, Mrs. Sontag?” inquired the boy, as 
he turned to go, his young eyes twinkling roguishly. 

“Neffer you mindt!” she exclaimed, her big hands 
outstretched to shake him. 

But “Joccup” was nimble. In a bound he jumped 
from the doorway to the ground, leaping the same steps 
that had divided our Romeo from his Juliet, a distance 
of more than six feet ; for the rear of the house gripped 
the hillside; the front was set on piles. 

“ Gee! she’s not so sick, either!” exclaimed the boy, 
as he “made tracks” for Dr. Myers’. “But there’ll 
be two patients if I don’t get him in a hurry, an’ I’ll be 
one of ’em.” 

Jake climbed a worm fence, and was halfway across 
a field when he heard a lusty voice: “Run! Joccup, 
run! !” the whole a harsh crescendo of urgency. 


SOMEBODY’S WIFE. 


49 


It had effect on Jake; he hastened appreciably, and 
soliloquized as he ran: “Golly, that’s not ser bad 
neither fer a dyin’ Dutchman; if she kin do that well 
at that distance she’ll be ’most alive when I come back.” 

And so she was, bustling hither and thither, adding 
a feeling of mirth to all about her. An hour passed 
before the doctor arrived. 

“ Premature, but the child will live,” he said. Then, 
aside to Mrs. Sontag: “What has scared this young 
woman?” 

As Helen had explained to her after reviving some- 
what from the shock, so Mrs. Sontag explained to the 
physician. “Quite romantic — quite so, indeed,” re- 
torted that gentleman, exhibiting that interest toward 
such matters as lies deep in the most serious mind. 
“Quite a romance,” he concluded, “but with a sad 
finale — very sad. But we must not add to the bitter- 
ness, Mrs. Sontag,” he admonished, almost needlessly 
we may truthfully say. “We must see that the child 
and mother have every possible chance to get well. 
These miners?” he started on another tack question- 
ingly, “are they — that is, do you think they can be 
kept quiet enough ? ” 

Mrs. Sontag laughed a hearty, robust, deep-chested 
laugh. 

“Gept quiet! dem? Vy, dogtor, dey’U valk on der 
hands and knees if dey know Helen pe sick, und Ogeley 
he’ll valk on hees head if it vill do her goot.” 

Doctor Myers turned smiling toward the bed in the 
far corner. “That’s quite a compliment. Miss — er 
— excuse me,” he added hastily — “Mrs. Roberts.” 
Then, less seriously: “But we’ll be satisfied with just 


50 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


plain common-sense without the gymnastics in this 
case, Mrs. Sontag,” his eyes yet on the young mother. 

Helen smiled back weakly. She made an effort as if 
to speak, but the physician held up his hand warningly : 
‘‘Never mind,” he said. “You must sleep now.” 

He took from a vial a number of morphine tablets, 
with the reiterated injunction that they be given and 
the patient kept absolutely quiet. 

The mother-love of the portly nurse, so long dormant 
for want of subjects on which to lavish it, found full 
vent. Mrs. Sontag had never known the blessing of 
maternity. Helen and her baby were as if sent to 
satisfy a desire natural with every woman. That she 
might better care for Helen, she procured the temporary 
services of two girls of the neighborhood. A mother 
could not have been more attentive or kind. Under 
her homely, but very successful method of caring for 
the newly-born, little Tressy was brought out of the 
lethargy of premature birth. In a few days she became 
a real bright-eyed baby, cooing or crying according as 
was her mood. 

Ten days passed slowly. Helen was sitting up for 
the first time since her confinement. Mrs. Sontag had 
brought from the parlor a comfortable reclining chair. 
Helen lay in a recumbent position, her face pale but 
richer by the deeper beauty of maternity. The first 
snowflakes of early winter were falling, shutting from 
view the towering head-frames above the shaft. A 
bright coal fire added cheer to what would otherwise 
have been rather dull environment. Tressy was awake, 
and had just been taken to her mother’s arms from 
the improvised cradle standing at the bedside, when 
someone knocked on the door. 


SOMEBODY’S WIFE. 


51 

“ Come in,” said Helen, her voice vibrant from recent 
crying. 

The door swung open and Oakley entered the room. 

The paleness of the young mother’s face mingled 
with crimson; she held tightly to her breast, with a 
pardonable feeling of maternal pride, the bundled baby. 

Oakley came nearer, somewhat diffident at his own 
boldness. ‘‘Does — does my coming make you feel 
bad?” he stammered. 

“Oh, no,” Helen replied, cheerily; “sit down.” 

The young man took a chair. “ I asked Mrs. Sontag 
if she’d care, and she said ‘No, if you didn’t.’” Helen 
smiled. Oakley went on bashfully twirling his hat, 
as he spoke: “ I wanted to see — to see the baby a week 
ago,” he blurted, meaning, of course, the baby’s mother, 
“but missis wouldn’t let me.” 

“Mrs. Sontag has been very good to me — like a 
real mother,” Helen sighed, the latter an unconscious 
expression of regret, doubtless, for lack of that essential 
of complete happiness in the home she had left. 

“Yes, I — that is — er — Mrs. Sontag has been very 
good,” confusedly acknowledged Oakley. Involun- 
tary egotism came near bringing to light the night trips 
to the village, after hearing from Mrs. Sontag the story 
Helen would not tell herself. Inborn manliness in- 
stantly asserted itself, and Oakley’s gaze shifted from 
the face of the mother to the child, then to the fire blaz- 
ing in the grate. Helen had wondered, and was still un- 
enlightened regarding the identity of someone who had 
called incognia at drug store and doctors with 
payment for services rendered, and to all inquiries had 
replied simply: “Just say ‘A Friend.’ ” 


52 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


“Come closer to the fire,” Helen suggested, and 
Oakley moved his chair from the door. “You’re not 
as devilish this morning as — as that night you were 
trapper,” she taunted, sweetly smiling at his obvious 
diffidence, as she could well afford to now. He colored 
like a schoolgirl, and Helen did too. But her 
manner had won his confidence, and that not un- 
pleasant familiarity. 

“ Gee, that was fierce, and you married and — and — 
that way,” he said, poking at the crackling lumps of 
coal which were doing well enough. “But you know 
I — that I didn’t know, Helen?” 

“Of course,” the girl acquiesced ; “it was my fault — 
not yours. But I did start several times to tell you, 
and, and then thought I’d tease you. . . I don’t 

know what made me do it . . . perhaps, well I 

think it was because I didnH want to ... ” 

“Well you certainly did,” Oakley returned, throwing 
his arm over the chair back, and his right leg over his 
left. His feet were tightly encased in a soft congress 
kangaroo, and his clothes well fitted, new, and costly, 
having but the day before come from a nearby tailoring 
establishment. Our twenty-two- year-old of the Amer- 
ican breed are senatorial in everything but grammar, 
dear Reader, the cartoonist of hebetude to the contrary 
notwithstanding. 

Our “Oakleys” in mature life are our mine fore- 
men, superintendents, and sometimes receive three 
thousand yearly and expenses for keeping the death 
rate as low as it is. 

A neat, small patterned gold chain hung in semi- 
circle across his vest, and a pendant, of the same metal, 


SOMEBODY’S WIFE. 


53 


hung from it. A newly-laundered white linen shirt, 
and a black tie completed a neat, simple, yet rich ap- 
parel, which, with his hair combed perfectly in a V 
shape over his patrician forehead, the clear unsunned 
complexion quite enviable in a society belle, added the 
finishing touch to the Picture of Manhood, insofar as 
concerned the man and his habit. 

Set thus in the somber background of an unwin- 
dowed wall he sat in silence for some minutes, and 
Helen’s eyelids drooped and her eyes had not moved 
from her baby’s face. Her hand sought its tiny pink 
feet and found them cold. A small cashmere shawl 
rested over her shoulders and she took it off, warmed it, 
and placed it carefully around the tiny legs and 
toes. A little brooch which had fastened it fell to the 
carpet, and Oakley bent and picked it up. Its face 
of gold represented a pair of hearts entwined and a 
monogram was engraved thereon — 

“ It was his — George’s,” she faltered, and turned 
away her eyes which had suddenly and completely lost 
the reminiscent smile of her escapade with Oakley. 

Oakley’s attention went instantly from the room to 
the snow-covered ground without. Behind him the 
young mother grieved, for theirs had been great love. 
Circumstances over which neither had control had made 
politic, from their viewpoint, a secret union, and a fate 
more cruel still had wrenched them apart. Both had 
willed, earnestly, that the fruit of their sacred union 
should see light in their own home. Thus it came, as 
it so often does among the poor, that maternity pre- 
ceded, since it waits not on circumstances social, in- 
dustrial or otherwise, the home making. 


54 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


Oakley turned and Helen was still crying, silently; 
the love emblem yet reposing in her fingers. It was 
evident to the young man’s mind that one whose love 
was so intense as Helen’s could bear no division, at 
least not just then. But it sent a pang through his 
heart. He loved her, his love modified, to a certain 
extent, by later events, it is true, but not extinguished. 
He took from her unresisting fingers the brooch and 
held it close to his eyes. 

“I’d like to take this for friendship’s sake,” he said, 
looking tentatively over at Helen. 

“It was his — his mother’s,” she reiterated, in ner 
emotion forgetting, and sighed, retrospectively, review- 
ing the night Roberts had given the little brooch to her; 
“but I guess you can keep it — now — you’re goin" 
away?” 

The young man nodded, and put the little brooch 
carefully in his pocket, and pulled therefrom a tiny 
bundle that might have contained anything from a pair 
of bootees for Helen’s baby, to a tightly wrapped 
shoulder shawl for the young mother. It was carefully 
tied, and an inscription in pencil said: “A present for 
The Baby. Please don’t open till to-morrow.” He 
put it in the chair behind him, and strode over to the 
chair in which Helen sat, his big, blue, brave eyes 
lighting with a protective tenderness common to all 
elemental manliness. 

“Can I take ^/?” he asked, slightly embarrassed, 
when Helen looked up into his eyes and smiled. He 
meant the baby. 

“Why of course,” she replied, but she watched care- 
fully his every movement, with an atom of fear 
that in his giant clumsiness he’d drop the fluffy bundle. 


SOMEBODY’S WIFE. 


55 

“Gee!” he exploded: “A pretty kid — ^just like you, 
Helen.” 

The girl colored deeply, but didn’t reply to his com- 
pliment. Her mind seemed in a great degree dazed. 
He continued: “I — I ought to beg your pardon for 
what I said that night, but I didn’t know you was — 
you was Somebody’s wife, and — and — this his child. 
I had no idea — ” 

“I know,” Helen assured him, “and it was my fault. 
But it’s all right only — only that,” and the sudden 
trembling which came into her voice suggested thought 
of Roberts. 

It was plain that Oakley had not given up hope of 
making the girl his wife sometime. He went to the 
window after returning the child to its mother’s lap, 
and looked out for a long time without speaking, wait- 
ing for Helen to cease her audible sorrow. Presently 
he turned to her and gave her a slip of paper torn from 
a mine memorandum, strongly impregnated with the 
odor of toil, and blotched with carbon dust. 

“ That’ll nearly always find me if you’d care to write 
sometime,” and Helen, almost blinded with tears, and 
verging on hysterical breakdown, just nodded that she 
would. She had previously learned from Mrs. Sontag 
that Oakley was going away, having received with his 
pay an order to report immediately at another point. 

He looked at the girl and appreciated the struggle 
going on, also, the danger of further conversation to one 
in Helen’s condition. It was plain he would have said 
more, but emotion overcame him: tears came to his 
own eyes, and made him ashamed. With a bare “ Good 
bye, Helen,” he turned to the door and was gone. 


56 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


The double loss — the companionship, and the 
knowledge that she had been assured ^^by^^his presence 
of a friend — overcame all thought ^of other^ things. 
The package remained unopened and Helen wept^her- 
self into composure. 

Obedient to its commands, which were almost sacred 
to her , and despite much tormenting curiosity, Helen 
untied its multitudinous knots the next morning, ex- 
pecting some slight token dear to the heart of woman. 
Instead there was a half of his pay envelope, and 
exactly one half of his pay, and this note : 

‘‘Dear Helen: Don’t please send this back nor be 
mad. Blame Mrs. Sontag . . . She told me it 
was the only remembrance that could be cashed in at 
the Company Store at anytime it loses its newness, and 
will be as good then as now, either for you or the baby. 

Good bye, from a 

bigger baby — Oakley.” 


VII. 


The ^Friendless. 

Oh, gently on thy suppliant's head, 

Dread goddess lay thy chastening hand. 

Not in thy Gorgon terrors clad. 

Nor circled with thy vengeful hand. 

Ashy the impious thou art seen 
With thundering voice and threatening mien. 
With screaming Horror's funeral cry. 
Despair, and fell Disease, and ghastly Poverty, 
— Hood’s Ode to Adversity. 

'^HERE is a proverb to the effect that Contempt 
stalks closely on the heels of Familiarity. This 
is not the less true of the oft dreaded climax of our 
earthly existence. Men and women, too, may see, 
in so many instances, human temples of clay deprived 
of their immortal parts and become inanimate, that 
to their eyes the passing ceases to be sacred or profound 
becomes commonplace and lacks interest. This is 
especially true of public hospital attendants in peace, 
and the merciful followers of the cross of red in war. 

One whom years of service had given grim acquaint- 
ance with such scenes was “Captain” Murphy — cap- 
tain by virtue of decided military bearing sequent upon 
service in governmental employ. Passing along the 
lower corridor of a Pittsburg hospital he met one of 
the house surgeons. 


58 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


“ Hello, Cap ! just hunting you,” cheerfully exclaimed 
the physician. 

“So?” nonchalantly queried the captain. 

The surgeon stopped to relight a cigar held between 
his teeth. 

“Case 28, men’s emergency ward, is ready for the 
dead house,” he said, in manner as matter-of-fact as 
sawyer would receive or give information concerning a 
specified log ready for the mill. Turning a page in a 
memorandum he continued, “ G. Roberts — railroad 
case — strange — ” 

“Sir?” interrogated the Captain. 

“Curious coincidence,” I said. “Two same name, 
same ward, don’t take the live one,” he admonished, 
grimly smiling. 

Each went his way. The captain’s mission was soon 
accomplished; another name was added to the long list 
of “Accidentally killed.” 

The ‘ dive” G. Roberts had come out of the lethargy 
touching on one side the infinite, on the other the living, 
physical world, in which state visitors would have been 
denied entrance to his presence. But none came to be 
denied; Helen couldn’t. 

When he had grown stronger Roberts had made 
inquiry regarding any possible communications sent 
him and not received, and was told a small “blaze” 
in one of the departments had burnt up a lot of letters 
awaiting certain patients’ recovery, but that any which 
came in the future were to be put in a safe. This 
didn’t illuminate the gloom of Roberts’ particular case, 
nor, well for his state just then, forebode the sequent ill. 

But who shall foretell the result of any human 


THE FRIENDLESS. 


59 

mistake; how far from the ordinary its winding course 
shall take us ere the end be reached ? 

“You are worrying, my man,” said the physician. 
“Try all you can to be patient and composed, since 
worry is but keeping you here longer.” 

Roberts did not tell him the truth. He continued to 
worry and wonder, surprise growing greater as the days 
went by. But in spite of all, the vigor natural to youth 
asserted itself. One fine Spring morning he walked 
over the Point Bridge to the Furness home, to the ad- 
dress whence had gone all of his letters to Helen. 

“They’ve gone; moved long ago,” a neighbor 
told him. “Where?” She didn’t know or care. No 
neighborly love was lost between them. 

“And Helen?” 

The woman’s face brightened at the name. “ I don’t 
know,” she replied, seemingly regretting that she could 
not give the information desired on this point; “she 
went before they did.” 

The next neighbor knew even less, nor cared. George 
Roberts had good reason to be aware of the bitterness 
engendered in the Furness home by the woman who 
ruled its destiny, but he hadn’t any idea of how far that 
feeling extended. Such as might have been of use 
to him by their knowledge would have gladly known 
themselves if they could. One of these was a small 
grocer on the street corner. 

“I’d like to find out the same thing myself, mister,” 
he grinned. “Little good it ’ud do me though, I sup- 
pose.” Then, drawing up one eye until the two lids 
almost closed on each other he asked: “Did she leave 
you in the hole, too?” 


6o 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


Roberts smiled despite his troubles, at the ludicrous 
picture the man presented. He replied in the affirma- 
tive, not, however, explaining in what kind of a ‘‘hole.” 

Roberts made other investigations, but the result was 
the same. He went to his old boarding place to get his 
few belongings. These, however, contained nothing 
of real value, the more treasured articles being a few 
trinkets belonging to his mother and Helen. 

Then he slipped away, determined to find work. 
But the land groaned with panic. Heavy of heart he 
went to place after place in the city, turning from each 
with the same negation thrumming dolefully in his ears. 
Evening came, and with it hunger and weakness more 
distressing. 

Darkness was come, and labor — which, had he 
procured, would have been the immediate passport 
to board and lodging — seemed as far away as ever. 
The last coin between him and aosolute poverty he took 
from his pocket and looked long and earnestly upon it. 
He had hoped to spend it for an evening meal, slight, 
but partly satisfying. His legs refused to carry him 
much farther, and the next places at which he could 
hope to obtain employment were nearly five miles away. 
He boarded a car, and with the reluctancy of a man 
parting with his last friend he gave the coin in payment 
for the ride. 

******** * 

Roberts staggered hopelessly away from the heated 
and dust-laden air. The last remaining hope of the 
day had failed to materialize. The deep, pellucid river 
was nearby, and thither he turned his steps. The sun 


THE FRIENDLESS. 


6i 


was down, and all was silent save the booming rever- 
beration of the great engines, re-echoing from the far- 
ther side. The deep and musical tones of an up-coming 
steamboat sounding its whistle for “open lock” at Port 
Perry added a still deeper color to the dark melancholia 
eating its way to the young man’s soul. 

To his soul ? 

True, for if the last mortal act be one’s own destruc- 
tion, is not the leading cause striking at something more 
lasting than the mortal clay ? 

The murmurs of the broad river were the only sounds 
to arrest immediate attention. But some black clouds 
were breaking, and an occasional silvery stream of light 
from the rising moon shone through upon the water, 
capping the wavelets with a brilliant sheen; to one of 
normal mood an observation of delight. 

Trembling with the tumult of conflicting emotions 
George threw himself down on the sand. His 
heart was almost breaking — life or death hung trem- 
blingly in the balance. It was but a few steps to com- 
plete oblivion of sorrow which for months had 
silently dogged his every move. But — and a sicken- 
ing pause possessed him — this would also drown his 
hope of Helen! 

The day had been soporific; the wanderer tired. 
From a sitting posture he slid full length on the sandy 
beach of the Monongahela and slept, to dream an in- 
terwoven scene of his mother and his wife, with the 
vagary and fleeting of exhausted body and mind. 
Words came again he had not heard since a boy in 
the western state where, among the dancing mountain 
air his bookkeeper father sought the health which was 


62 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


ever elusive. Sentences had passed between husband 
and wife which but vaguely hinted at an existing en- 
mity afterward ended too late. Sometimes, when 
they thought him asleep, he had heard the subject 
approached cautiously, and end in sobs on his mother’s 
part. 

And from it all the boy gathered that somewhere 
and at some time a hasty temper had done that which 
cooler thought would have afterward undone — thatNa- 
thaniel Ferguson had died unrelenting toward the 
Scottish foundryman whose daughter he had married, 
and, unforgiving to the last, had thrust some letters 
into the fire and returned others. Also that he had 
later forbade the subject to be mentioned. And the 
self-imposed wall erected by the father had never been 
scaled by the son, nor even attempt made to renew 
acquaintance with an old man, whose days being num- 
bered had sunk his feeling in the interest of a possible 
grandchild or grandchildren. He had heard indirectly 
of Ferguson’s passing, but not of a later marriage which 
had given child and mother a new name. He had looked 
for a Ferguson and missed a Roberts. And although the 
latter had been in the vicinity for some time, paddling 
along on his own resources, as the reader knows, until 
that hour it had never occurred to him to do the seeking. 
But in his dream he fancied himself doing so, and the 
fact pleased him, and, he thought, his mother also. 
This was strange, too. For months past she had hardly 
a place in his thoughts. Dreaming, he saw her flitting 
about singing at her task. She had had a sweet voice 
which he vividly remembered. Yet it was strange 
this fitfulness of her words and person , . . “And 


THE FRIENDLESS. 63 

we shall see how, while we frown and sigh, God’s plans 
go on as best for you and me . . . ” 

He wondered why the singer paused . . . but 

then, no . . . people can’t sing while steamboats 

pass by . . . how strange! . . . how did that 

. . . yes, that was a steamboat, he had heard them 

hundreds of times going South below Point Bridge 
with their tows of coal . . but how did a steamboat 

drag all that coal over that mountain . . . that 

little creek is too small for a steamboat . . . now 

if it was on that river Mother used to tell me about 
away out in Pennsylvania — out where Granddad 
lives . . . oh, pshaw! it’s gone back over that 

hill; and the Voice took up the refrain . . . But 

it was Helen this time ! How did she — 

“And if, sometimes, commingled with Life’s wine. 
We find the wormwood, and rebel and shrink. 

Be sure a Wiser Hand than yours or mine. 

Pours out this portion for our lips to drink.” 

Roberts turned uneasily. “That’s all right, Helen 
. . . that’s good! Sing again . . Mother . .” 

But not for the weary dreamer or the singer does 
the voice of commerce cease. Above and to the left, 
a rushing, roaring, train o’erwhelmed the human voice. 
George awoke. The train was disappearing in the 
distance as he raised himself to a sitting posture. Across 
and directly opposite, a faint glimmer streaked the 
water from a window’s light. From the doorway 
Roberts could distinguish the emergence of a woman, 
who, moving about, continued her song: 


64 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


‘‘Then be content, poor heart! 

His plans, like lilies, pure and white unfold, 

We must not tear the close-shut leaves apart; 

Time will reveal the calyxes of gold ” 

He laughed a little at the choral mix-up. “That’s 
strange that — that — they were singing that in my 
dream, too — ” 

Once more the strain started and was broken. The 
water, throwing in manifold intensity the sound of the 
voice, was ruffled into high commotion. The tug 
slowly neared the lock. Its puffing ceased; the stento- 
rian voices of the deck hands subsided, and likewise as 
its hulk was lifted on the inrushing waters to the level 
above it, a human soul arose in a certain measure from 
its despondency. 

George looked up to the fast-gathering stars. The 
spacious firmament was now flooded with a full moon’s 
light; the last dark cloud had vanished. He knelt 
with a swaying body, his hands entwined in a moment’s 
prayer, “Guide me. Heavenly Father — to do — 
what’s right — just now,” which, amid the renewed 
silence was fittingly preluded: 

“And if through patient toil, we reach the land 
Where tired feet, with sandals loose, may rest. 
When we shall clearly know and understand, 

I think that we shall say, ‘ God knew the best!’ ” 

The singer was done. 

The door on the other shore of the Monongahela 
closed on her person, the light flitted, doubtless into 


THE FRIENDLESS. 65 

another room, and, so far as the man who had inter- 
estedly watched it was concerned, went out. 

Roberts arose, and stood a moment undecided what 
next to do. And finally, with no particular purpose in 
view, he went up the slope from the river’s channel, 
much more optimistic than when he had gone down. 

A roadway leading into the country skirted the hill- 
side. Beneath an arc light — the last one receiving 
its power from the huge dynamos at the other end of 
the borough — Roberts sat down, and for want of 
something better to do pulled from his coat pocket a 
little bundle of tranklements wrapped carefully by 
hands that were no more — his mother’s. As a boy 
he had seen her take each separate article — a picture, 
square, heavy-framed, of small dimension, having at 
top a metal ring; a comb of antique design, and well 
worn, a few newspaper clippings, yellow with age, and 
such heirlooms as our mothers treasure beyond price, 
yet which have no present value if we except sentiment. 
He turned them over one by one, and wondered what 
on earth had made her keep such things, yet at the same 
time loath to part with them himself. The clipping 
containing a paragraph anent the woman’s elopement, 
had been evidently cut from a city paper, but another, 
when unfolded, was a column, and its inferior, crude 
typography indicated a home weekly. In the latter 
his mother was the beautiful daughter of our esteemed 
fellow- townsman, Andrew McFarlane, Esquire, owner 
of the McFarlane Foundry, who (without any specific 
co-relation) employs nearly a score of molders, etc., 
among them Ferguson.” 

Roberts laid these carefully back with a sad remi- 
niscent smile^ playing about his wan lipSt 


66 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


He next examined the photograph which, very faded, 
depicted a man and woman — the latter in crinoline. 
He had often seen his mother with this picture, but 
until now never gave it a thought. He eyed the man’s 
features for a father, but as he could recall him it was 
not he. For one thing the man in the likeness was too 
old. Also, he was much like the woman, and the latter 
was certainly Mrs. Roberts. He turned it over, and 
saw in a heavy hand: ‘‘Andrew McFarlane and Sarah: 
Braddock, Pa.” 

“That’s mother — and Granddad McFarlane!” 
Roberts’ eyes brightened, and his heart grew light, only 
to suddenly grow heavy again. But in that instant the 
enmity of a life had passed where it belonged. 

“If I go he might be dead — or — what’s much 
worse, disclaim me, perhaps put me out.” 

He placed the picture away, and started on, hardly 
knowing where. “It can’t take me to — worse,” he 
assured himself. 

The rattle of a farm wagon sounded behind him. 
He stopped. 

“Hello!” a voice from the seat called, “goin’ my 
way ? ” Then, without waiting for an answer, “ Whoa ! 
Jump in!” 

George scrambled feebly to the wagon end. 

“ Lie down, sir ! Lie down, sir, I say ! ” 

George thought the man meant himself, and was not 
loath to follow his command, inasmuch as the wagon 
bed was filled with straw. But he suddenly changed 
his mind. There was another occupant. A deep 
growl convinced him that the man’s words were ad- 
dressed to a huge dog, whose outlines he could discern 
crouching below the seat of his master. 


THE FRIENDLESS. 


67 

“Come forward! Come forward! he’ll not hurt 
you now.” 

Roberts climbed to the seat, and the wagon rumbled 
on. 

“ Coin’ far ?” queried the driver. 

“I don’t know,” Roberts replied, diffidence filling 
his mind as the possible failure of his errand appeared. 

“That’s funny,” said the other in sarcasm. 

Both men lapsed into silence. Roberts was too 
exhausted to talk much ; his body swayed as he sat on 
the seat, and he would have fallen off at several jolty 
places had he not clung desperately to the seat-board 
edge. He had not felt so weak before. He was first, 
however, to break the silence. 

“ Do you know a man up this way named McFarlane ? 

“Sure I do,” the driver of the wagon replied. He 
turned his gaze to the other: “You look rather weak 
to work in a foundry — reckon you’re huntin’ work?” 

The rumble of the mills shut out that part of the 
man’s words. He added again : “ Have you been sick ?” 

Roberts told him he had. 

“I thought so”; then very cheeringly to a man strug- 
gling to overcome a deathlike faintness: “You look 
as if another white shirt would do you!” 

Roberts tried to smile, but it died on his lips. He 
spoke feebly, but his words were audible, the wagon 
having reached a sandy stretch of road. That the man 
could help in his effort he explained: 

“Mr. McFarlane’s my grandfather.” 

“Is that so?” came in intense surprise. 

The “twenty men” were more. 

“And my name is Roberts ” 


68 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


The man looked at him queerly. 

“You don’t mean to tell me — now — that you’re 
Old Andy’s girl’s — that is that your mother was 
Andy’s daughter — she that he’s been tryin’ to find 
this long spell?” 

“She must have been,” Roberts affirmed. “But I 
never heard of his trying to find — mother.” Then: 
“Her name was McFarlane, and she married Andrew 
McFarlane’s bookkeeper, didn’t she?” 

The former thought a moment. 

“Let me see well, yes, now I remember, I think 

Ferguson did work — but here, you ” 

He looked doubtfully at Roberts as one would at 
an impostor. 

“Didn’t I hear you say you was named Roberts? 
Roberts Ferguson, I reckon?” 

“Just Roberts — George Roberts,” the latter cor- 
rected. Then, rather impatient at what seemed in his 
irrational and ill mood downright obtuseness, he ad- 
duced: 

“Mother was married to David Roberts, about two 
years after Mr. Ferguson — the man you knew — died. 
That happened in Colorado, and,” with a forced smile, 
“so did I.” 

“Well! Now! !” came explosively, and, “Git up, 
Charlie! Nell! Git up, here!” 

“My step-father was one of the many half- well 
men in Denver, and followed mother’s first husband — 
the man you knew — my father, in a little while. I 
can’t remember him, but I can mother, although she, 
too, left me out there a good while before I wanted her 
to, or she either,” Roberts sighed. 


THE FRIENDLESS. 


69 


“Well/’ acknowledged the other with a dry chuckle, 
“we don’t seem ter get as much chice as we’d like in 
that matter . . . but your Granddad’ll be tickled 

ter see you — he’s took a notion some time back to find 
your mother an’ you and the rest of yer if there is any, 
an’ I hear’s spent a good bit — for him. But he must 
a’ thought you was named Ferguson, an’ lived in the 
West. They say he’s advertised, but I’ve not seen 
any in our paper ... ” 

Roberts listened attentively. When the man paused 
he exclaimed: 

“I came East in answer to an ad — being out of 
work in Denver — first to Columbus, then Pittsburg. 
I met a girl there and — and got married just before 
I got hurt and sent to the hospital, and that’s worried 
me more than anything else . . ” 

“What, gettin’ married?” The farmer ha-ha’d and 
the mirth extended sufficiently to Roberts to bring a 
forced smile. 

“No,” he explained, running on in his confidences 
further than he had intended; “but she went some- 
where in Ohio to some of her folks and I’ve not heard 

from her. As soon as I get a little stronger I ” 

A sudden jolt over a huge stone shook the rest of the 
sentence back, and brought another from the driver: 

“H — 1! but that’s rough! 1” whether the wagon 
or matrimonial road he didn’t say. 

Roberts hung on desperately, his body momentarily 
growing weaker, his muscles lax. As soon as the other 
man could steady himself sufficiently to get a fair look 
at his companion during one of the moon-lighted inter- 
vals, he muttered semi-audibly: “He does look like 


70 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


her — sure — Then aloud: ‘‘Did you say you^d 
been livin’ in Pittsburg, too? an’ never been up here?” 

Roberts nodded, and the driver, with an oblique 
glance remarked: “That’s strange.” 

“But only a few months . . I was working as 

book-keeper in Armstrong’s factory until laid off when 
the panic came.” 

“ An’ never come up to see yer Granddad ? ” 

“I intended to — but when I got hit with an engine 
one morning it knocked a good many things sky-high 

. . . but it’s never too late to make a start in the 

right direction,” hinting at the wall of indifference 
born of hatred. 

“No; that’s right,” Roberts’ companion responded, 
following which both men grew silent, for the wagon 
made noise enough, bouncing up and down with tor- 
menting intermittence. 

Brushing its left side boards were slender branches 
of marsh willows. To the right arose almost perpen- 
dicular, the dark, semi-mountains skirting the right 
bank of the Monongahela, going south. In fitful 
streaks across the water came the reflection from the 
fiery stacks they had passed on the other bank. From 
among the wooded stretches above came in dull crashes 
the echo of ponderous steel. The wagon subsided; 
sand was death to its garrulity. 

The farmer was first to take advantage of the lull to 
declare: “That’ll kill old Andy — er — I mean your 
grandfather.” 

“ I hope not,” said George. 

“I’m afraid it will. He ain’t been well at all lately; 
every trifle upsets him. He’s set store on seein’ his 


THE FRIENDLESS. 


It 


daughter, specially since your grandmother died. 
Your mother was a fine girl, but like her father — set 
a pitch an’ stuck to it. I remember her well,” he re- 
peated. 

The wagon rattled along, so did the farmer: “The 
world don’t seem to have used you as well as it might,” 
making, as well as the night allowed, an inspection of 
the young man’s clothes. 

“Not very well,” replied Roberts. His voice trem- 
bled appreciably, and again a strange numbness came 
over him. He clutched tightly at the wagon seat in 
an endeavor to arrest the irresistible desire his body 
had to lean forward. The trees looming plainly on 
the hillside began phantasmagorically to recede into 
the far, oh, such a far, distance ! The deep reverbera- 
tions grew strangely silent, and all distant noise as well 
as that of the vehicle beneath him began to weirdly 
subside with consciousness into oblivion. 

Roberts sensed the danger of continuing on the seat, 
and slipped down onto the straw. 

“I believe I’ll lie down,” he said, “if you quiet that 
dog. I feel strange — and weak.” 

The man did, and drove on, but Roberts was ob- 
livious of the fact. He had fainted, or something ap- 
proximate; the combined influences of weakness, hunger 
excessive walking, and to cap it all the jolting wagon, 
had completed the work. The farmer didn’t know, 
of course — not then. When he reached home he 
said gladly and kindly : 

“We’re here, stranger; jump out and we’ll have a 
bite, an’ you’ll feel better.” 

But Roberts didn’t jump, nor move. A woman 
came with a light. 


r2 THE TIDE OE DESTINY. 

‘‘Hurry up, mother, hurry up!” came the voice from 
the road. 

The woman went speedily to the gate, not without 
a feeling of trepidation. Mrs. Martin was fearful lest 
in the course of the day at town her husband had looked 
once too often through the glass bottom. The occa- 
sions on which this happened were very rare, hence 
dreaded more. 

“Is there something wrong with you, Josiah?” 

“Nothin’ wrong with me, Lizzie,” he assured her; 
“but I’ve a young man here what’s sick. He’s old 
Andy’s girl’s son — you know Sarah.” 

The urgency of attendance on the sick man gave 
pause to the conversation. The woman held the light 
for a brief moment above the white face, and uttering 
a fear that he was dead, returned to the house, and from 
a cupboard brought cordial of her own making. She 
reached for a cup, then returned to the wagon. 

“Give him this, Josiah,” she said, “quick!” 

Martin held Roberts’ head on his knee and gave him 
some of the wine. Nature slowly asserted itself. The 
liquid stimulated, and in a few minutes he walked un- 
aided to the house. 

“You’ll not go to Andy’s to-night, ” they insisted, and 
Roberts, feeling much need of instant rest, acquiesced. 

Mrs. Martin had already prepared a couch for his 
comfort. A warm, nourishing supper and a soft, well- 
made bed eased and strengthened the tired body. 

Roberts slept long on the following morning. He 
didn’t hear Martin’s milk wagon rattle away in the 
direction of Andy McFarlane’s home. He didn’t see 
the disbelief give way before the earnestly-told 


THE FRIENDLESS. 


73 


incidents of the night preceding. He was unconscious to 
the breakfastless departure of a trembling old man who 
had determined to undo much that might have well 
been left undone years before. But however good his 
later intentions, this he could not do. He could make 
amends, but the past was irretrievably gone beyond his 
changing; just as it is with you and me. But unlike 
us, perhaps, McFarlane was preparing to profit by 
his past. 

“Wait a minute, Martin,” he called to the farmer. 
“ I’ll go alang wi’ ye to the laddie, an’ save auld Tammas 
frae hitchin’ up.” 

The two men drove away. Josiah was in amiable 
mood, but McFarlane was quiet and unusually taciturn. 
Thoughts of years gone were crowding fast upon him. 
His only daughter had been very dear to him, in having 
a disposition so like his own. Though the cares of life 
had partly displaced the supremacy she once held, the 
romance of long-forgotten incidents now in its turn 
overwhelmingly reigned above all else, and glossed over 
much that had hitherto filled the old man’s mind with 
bitterness. He could see again those hours they sat 
by the firelight, when he listened with unfeigned joy 
to her prattling. He could feel again the soft arms as 
they wrapped themselves about his neck in the days 
when Youth and he were partners. Scene after scene 
went in review before him. The last hour had been 
fraught with violent remorse. Never had he given 
place in his mind to a settled conviction that he and 
Sarah were never to meet again. He had felt a soften- 
ing within himself; hence his inquiries. He believed 
time would effect a reunion; and now she was gone! 


74 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


“Anyway/’ he murmured half aloud, “I’m glad o’ that 
wee bit gude done that boy: it might a’been Sarah’s 
Bubbie . . ” 

“ What’d yer say, Andy?” Martin asked, and the old 
man looked at him strangely. He had not thought he 
spoke aloud. 

He told the incidents we already know, and Martin 
assured him the “Boy” was the same. ‘‘He told me 
so last night,” which, indeed, he hadn’t. Martin 
had formed the hypothesis from the facts adduced. 
McFarlane’s face lighted, but he remained silent, while 
the pair drove on into the brightening day. The East 
was a ruddy glow. The sun burst over every living 
thing in full intensity. As he leaned back in the seat 
he was scarcely sensible of his surroundings. The joy 
apparent in all animate things was palpable mockery to 
the diluted misery of his own heart. Martin, by his 
>ide, was in a cheerful, even garrulous mood, but his 
,vorcis fell on partly deaf ears. 

The vehicle drew up slowly before the house. Through 
the large pines standing like sentinels at its front the 
strong winds of early spring sounded funereal to one 
in his distress. 

McFarlane entered the house. In an upper cham- 
ber he heard the step of him who alone remained 
— his son, inasmuch as his daughter had borne him — 
the grandchild — the only one — and one his eyes had 
never seen, and his old heart leaped with gladness. 

And right here, insofar as concerns what followed, 
we stop. Such scenes as this it is not within the privi- 
leges of the stranger to look upon. For us its sacred- 
ness shall be inviolable. We will leave the trembling 


THE FRIENDLESS. 


75 


hands of the old man clasped in those much younger 
but not much less infirm than his own. We will leave 
him to shed mingled tears of sorrow and joy over this 
meeting, so soon to be followed by one less transient — 
one that shall last last through all eternity. 

Sooner than he had dared hope — sooner than any 
who knew him would have surmised — his soul winged 
its way to that reunion he had so long desired, and of 
late sought. In a little while they carried him to rest 
in a quiet spot overlooking the broad river. 

And with the means placed at his command Roberts 
commenced definite action looking toward the finding 
of Helen. 


VIII. 


A New Idol at the Shrine of Love. 

Go lovely rose: 

Tell her that wastes her time and me, 

That now she knows, 

When I resemble her to thee. 

How sweet and fair she seems to he. 

— Waller. 


Y^HEN Oakley left Helen he went to a mining 
town many miles distant, at which place he had 
received orders to install some mining machinery. At 
the “Company boarding house” he procured lodging. 
With many others he sat in the “loafing room” await- 
ing supper. A young woman, evidently employed at 
the house, came in to speak to one of the men. Oakley 
turned, surprised. Had he not left Helen convalescent 
at Sontag’s, and unable to travel, he could have sworn 
the woman before him was she; the same wavy hair, 
dark eyes, and general contour of face made uncommon 
similitude. 

“ Do you know the name of that girl ? ” he asked of a 
companion. 

“Sarah, I think,” the latter replied. 

“ But her other name ?” 

“I think it’s the same as her uncle’s what keeps the 
house,” was the unsatisfactory answer. 

“What is his name then?” 


AT THE SHRINE OF LOVE. 


77 


** Furness.” 

“Oh,” responded Oakley, turning again towards the 
girl standing in a distant corner. “ I thought it was 
something else, he murmured, almost inaudibly. He 
knew Helen by her married name only. 

It was several days later before the girl came in again. 
Oakley was alone. The other men were nearly 
all at work or in the village. Bob was on night turn, 
and the day being rainy he sat reading in the room set 
apart for the men. He set his eyes on the girl, and 
looked so long and closely that both were embarrassed. 
He determined, however, to satisfy himself on the point, 
murmuring to himself : 

“They surely must be related, anyway.” He spoke 
aloud: 

“Miss Furness.” 

Oakley laid down a magazine; the young woman 
ceased sweeping. 

“Was you speaking to me?” she asked, knowing it 
full well, but using the only way she knew of entering 
with any apparent ease a conversation with a stranger. 

The boarding-house girl of the mining country is 
rarely “bad,” and diffidence is an obvious part of her 
make-up. If she’s virtuous and desires to remain so, 
she does not come into intimate personal contact with 
the men she helps to serve. The author has been weeks 
at one place, and never once had opportunity of speak- 
ing to either of three young women of his age who aided 
in the care of twenty-six men. Not worse, nor better, 
than other men are these mine wanderers, but the 
elemental desires are ever strong pro rata with physical 
perfection and the exclusion of jhe feminine sex, and, 


78 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


being so, conservative matrons uphold the reputations 
of their respective hostelries by placing the guard of 
seclusion about and around their “girls.” Real Love 
there, as everywhere, has no difficulty in penetrating 
the “safeguard,” as is attested by the marriages which 
enliven the village, and in which quite often one of the 
Wanderers ceases his traveling, and becomes a Bene- 
dict at rest. Poor Peterson was the only one I ever 
knew who never stood a chance of mooring his miner 
barque safely in the matrimonial harbor. But Peterson 
was an exception. 

Oakley plunged straight into the subject nearest his 
heart. “Have you got a sister named Helen?” 

A look akin to shame crossed the girl’s face. “Yes 

— we — Helen is my sister’s name,” she stammered. 

“Do you know where she is?” 

The young woman came closer and sat down at a 
respectable distance from the stranger. “No. We 
knew she was at Colville, at Number Four shaft — . 
but that was before mother and the family moved away. 
We haven’t had any news of her since — George — her 

— since George was hurt,” she faltered, not wish- 
ing to be positive regarding a matter of which she felt 
uncertain. It was plain the conversation pained her. 
She was glad to hear tidings of her sister, but she felt 
that the young man before her knew of her condition 
as well as location. The questions he asked, and the 
method of asking were not of the stranger. 

“Do you know — ” Oakley stopped. The young 
woman’s face grew redder than the coals in the grate; 
she anticipated what he was about to say. “Do you 
know,” he started again, “that your sister has a little 
girl baby ? and that she’s married ?” 


AT THE SHRINE OF LOVE. 


79 


“I know she was going to be confined, but I didn’t 
know for sure she was married. I told Aunt all along 
I felt sure she was,” the young woman murmured al- 
most to herself, as if pleased of her own conviction 
relative to the sister’s probity, which was, indeed, a 
matter worthy of pride. “She was goin’ for a while 
with an orphan boy, who worked as clerk or something 
in Helen’s factory, who used to laugh and tell us he 
might perhaps be real well off some day and his mother 
had sent him some to college, but couldn’t finish it. 
Poor George!” she sighed, retrospectively, sweeping 
gingerly at the tiny dirt pile on the floor she had risen. 

Oakley watched the smile play about her mouth as 
he conveyed the agreeable information, only to see a 
deep pallor surge upward into the vacuum made by 
receding blood, as he told of Robert’s death in the 
hospital. For our Readers will understand that so 
far as Oakley knew George Roberts was dead. 

“Poor Helen and the baby!” Sarah exclaimed, “but 

if she is really married ” She again sat down. 

f'; Oakley looked pained at her doubt. “ Don’t your folks 
know about these things ?” he asked; “ didn’t you ? ” 

“Indeed, Mr. Oakley, and how could we?” the girl 
replied, twirling nervously the broom laid at right angle 
across her knees with the quick, informal intimacy 
characteristic of her place and people — when the 
“bars” are lowered. “It seems impossible — no, not 
the she smiled, in reply to an interrogation, “but 

that Helen and George were married. Sister was only 
just past seventeen, and George had wanted Helen, 
but our stepmother wouldn’t give consent, and she 
^aid they couldn’t get married without she did.” 


8o 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


The young man, wiser in the world’s ways from 
greater and more intimate contact, could not repress a 
smile. Without remarking the contortion at her ex- 
pense — for Sarah was looking at the blue and white 
checks in her apron — she went on: 

“Helen was gettin’ three dollars a week at the cork 
factory, and mother needed it.” 

“ No doubt,” soliloquized Oakley aloud, “ but perhaps 
she didn’t deserve it. Fifty cents aint much, as I re- 
member when I got that in the shops, but some folks’ 
affections aint worth more than thirty, and a discount 
for cash on that.” 

His face was impassive, and the girl had no rare sense 
of humor. She continued: 

“They wrote and told me they thought Helen had 
come to Uncle’s — that’s here — but when I wrote 
and told ’em she wasn’t here they thought maybe she 
was somewhere else.” 

Oakley smiled broadly, and breaking from the broom 
end, as it almost touched him lying across her lap, a 
splint, he proceeded to cast at the girl oblique interested 
glances, meanwhile poking between his teeth for some- 
thing which wasn’t there. But he knew — or rather 
his subconscious self did — that it was either in the pot 
or the oven waiting to torment. Necessity had brought 
the habit. He referred to her last sentence : 

“You weren’t sure?” 

And the girl replied, stolid as earnest, “No.” 

Then Oakley forgot convention and just roared, and 
the girl blushingly awaited his occult laughter to sub- 
side before she added: 

“Mother didn’t care enough to find out.” 


AT THE SHRINE OF LOVE. 


8i 


The young man’s face suddenly became serious. 
He forgot to pick up this last bit of unconscious humor, 
and was busy thinking of Motherhood as exemplified 
in his own. 

“Your mother?^^ he questioned, his mind reverting 
to certain things gleaned from Helen, whom he had 
found truthful to the last detail in all things which called 
for fact only. 

The girl allowed the sarcasm to pass. 

“They thought she’d be goin’ back home in a few 
days.” 

“Which she would, too,” Oakley interposed,” if 
your — your — step-mother had been less devil and 
more human, or the green in your sister’s pocket as long 
as the distance between that place where you moved 
from to here and Pittsburg.” 

“Oh,” said Sarah, understanding some things which 
had not before seemed clear. 

Then Oakley, in that confidence of Congenial Youth, 
told her about Bennet and the soup, and how he had 
taken Helen to church, and the splendid love-making 
he had done at the finale, and after that some things 
not so laughable. 

In the sympathetic sister’s eyes tears of laughter 
turned to sorrow, and in her intense feeling toward the 
youth who sat opposite her she could hardly refrain 
from hugging him. And yet with regard to what he 
had done to make Helen’s way brighter and lighter he 
barely hinted, placing Mrs. Sontag always in the light 
of Guardian Angel, and himself as the Midnight Mes- 
senger. But even the perception too dull to see the 
plainest pun, sees and reciprocates a kindness. 


82 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


Following this the blue eyes and the dark grew very 
nice to each other, and Oakley blushed as deep a rose 
color as Sarah, when the latter’s aunt came in suddenly 
and found the pair tete-a-tete. 

Long and lovingly Sarah wrote to Helen that after- 
noon, telling in her simple, but earnest way of many 
things she knew her sister would want to hear. She 
dilated on her interview with Robert Oakley, and con- 
fessed, in the naive way some young women have of 
placing such confidences, that she was “already over 
head and ears in love with him.” That this sentiment 
was reciprocated at least in part was evidenced later 
when Oakley took Sarah as his wife to the new assign- 
ment he had received. 

But in fairness to him we must state that he had first 
offered the relation to Helen, for they had been in casual 
correspondence with each other. 

Doubtless she had thought long and seriously, and 
to his question if there was anyone else she replied : 

“No, indeed, I should think, Mr. “Oakley, 
you would know that . . if I 

could only explain all “I feel . . 

but I’m not a very “good writer 
. . . but I can “say what I 
thought you would know “by now, 
that I like you, but the “child 
Tressy might ” 

The mining girPcovers'^'no^mental reservations by 
obscure phrase. Knows she the truth the truth must 
be stated — or nothing. 

“There’s no one else,” the letter continued, 
‘not much fear, 


AT THE SHRINE OF LOVE. 


83 


“ and it would be best in the way you said, of 
“course, but there’s only the little girl and 
“me, and where I go she’ll go, too, if I have 

“to work only for board 

Then later: “I know Sally will make you a good 
“woman. She was always a hard-working 
“girl, and steady, and I’m awful glad it’s her 
“. . . 1 do hope you’ll have good luck. 

“And what you said about my husband I 
“don’t know hardly how to say it, but I do 
“know that nothing on this earth, and that’s 
“ why as much as Tressy, could change my love 

“for him It don’t seem to me 

“ he’s never going to see me and Tressy, and 
“I know perhaps I oughtn’t to — now, but 
“I feel just the same towards him as I did 
“the day I last seen him . . . You can 
“ tell Sally for me that if she has anything to 
“send the kids at home I’m going out to see 
“where he’s buried, and take a wreath of 
“flowers I’ve growed in that little patch you 
“know by the kitchen window, if Mrs. Sontag 
“don’t go away for awhile as she’s thinking of. 
“She’s talking of going to some place in Colo- 
“rado where her brother’s a foreman at some 
“new coal mines out there, and if she does 
“ fully make up her mind of course I’ll have to 
“ keep every cent for fear I couldn’t get another 
“ place where they’ll let the baby go, and Mrs. 
“Sontag says it’s not easy to do. She wants 
“ me to go out West with her but I don’t like 
“the idea of going that far away from him,,, 


84 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


******** 

“ I’d like awful well to come out for the wed- 
‘‘ding but I can’t just now.” 

And with a few other commonplaces the young 
mother’s epistle ended. For the beautiful mining coun- 
try girl of nineteen the love of the youth of twenty-one 
whose name she bore, and who was her child’s father, 
was with each dawn renewed — and hope. Theirs 
no glittering bubble of passion to be pricked at the first 
untoward movement, but sacred and lasting as life 
itself. And Oakley was not the only one who had tried 
and found Helen the living symbol of constancy to a 
cherished love. More than one of our most superb 
specimens of young manhood had laid the utmost of 
their gentleness at her disposal, and she, sensing as 
you or I perhaps would not the true spirit of kindness, 
accepted their attentions. But when in either case it 
grew to a bolder, more demonstrative point, each in 
turn was kindly, but firmly told that her heart was un- 
changingly another’s. 

Before this great sorrow she had grown rather than 
shrunk, the flower of her womanhood in its shadow 
bloomed. Before full of girl’s moods and vagaries at 
times, now she was in every essential a woman with a 
real woman’s depth of thought and solidity of action 
and decision. Uncommonly well she “knew her own 
mind,” and adhered to it. If any one could have 
changed|[her purpose, or alienated her affections, 
Oakley Jmost assuredly could. For she had never 
ceased to have a tender feeling almost akin to love for 


AT THE SHRINE OF LOVE. 


85 


him. And though not said, undoubtedly it in part was 
the magnanimity of a sister which allowed Sarah to 
become his wife, and she being altogether of a pliant 
disposition took for husband him who loved the other 
sister better, with a full knowledge of every act and 
word which had passed between the pair in that respect. 
Moreover, Robert Oakley’s interest in Helen did not 
cease with his marriage. Letters and small remittances 
went infrequently in the after time to the Sontag board- 
ing house, and when that kindly woman and her hus- 
band went to a Western mining country Helen availed 
herself of the oft-repeated invitation to share the Oakley 
home. 

She went one morning, when the early frost had 
whitened the ground, to the station, and several hours 
later was ushered into a room in which lay her sister 
and her first baby : a robust boy. From that day until 
errors omissive on the part of mining officials and own- 
ers, and errors commissive on the part of an ignorant 
employee, removed Oakley and nearly two hundred 
others from their earthly labors, Helen and little Tressy 
abode with them. Regarding this we must speak later. 


IX. 


A LITTLE BROOCH. 

Oh! was it I or was it you 
That broke the subtle chain that ran 
Between us two^ between us two? 

Ohy was it I or was it you? 

— Perry. 

COMEWHERE, while for the few fleeting months 
he had by superhuman exertions of a dear 
mother been a collegian, George Roberts had read that 
every year in the United States alone several thousand 
men, women and children disappear literally “from the 
face of the earth,” and, despite every exertion on the 
part of loving friends, despite published notices far and 
wide, despite the money rewards offered for even 
positive proof of their death, or whereabouts if alive, 
ninety per cent are never again heard of ! Truly fiction 
pales before actuality. The author’s imagination is 
a mole-hill of tragedy compared with what is happen- 
ing around us every day. But seeing it personally, or 
as it is dished out to us in the monosyllabic press dis- 
patch, we fail to analyze even its remotest fringe. To 
us, then, it is “statistics.” Let it come into our life 
and it loses its generic pallor and electrifies us with the 
vari-hued and many-sided human, tragic emotion. 
In order to explain the writer must, even with one or 
two cases, dissect, and the dissection and reiteration 


A LITTLE BROOCH. 


87 


become to the casual and shallow critic Improbability. 

But this aside, when George Roberts had tried for 
almost half as many years as his grandfather, to un- 
ravel one of these thousands of human mysteries, the 
suspense had grown almost chronic, and — bearable. 
He had no idea of giving up : he came from the wrong 
stock to do that, and it was this inherent determination, 
which even in so hopeless a case as this had proved, 
which prompted him to undertake himself what he had 
before delegated to others, believing they were cleverer 
than he in their own specific sphere. 

His peace of mind had been solely disturbed relative 
to Helen, however. Extreme kindness and equity had 
characterized his new position in the World of Toil. 
The foundry employees found in him a good, even 
personal friend, and to those who through no fault of 
their own were suffering as he had done no man may 
compute his kindness. He delved deep into the sor- 
sows of their lives, partly from a selfish motive, for 
thereby lay a lessening of his own. Have you not felt 
likewise, reader, when, in the midst of sorrow you 
thought greater than you could bear, you heard of a 
neighbor having affliction compared with which your 
own was trivial ? His changed status also brought him 
in contact with a “higher,” or, at least, a better edu- 
cated class, whose opportunities had been broader. 

One of these was a young man of exceptional quali- 
ties, whose traits were to those of Roberts as brother’s. 
He had found the roll foundry irksome, and had gone 
into the publishing business. His weekly magazine 
is a regular visitant in many homes — perhaps yours. 
Roberts had spent a Sabbath evening with him and his 


88 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


wife, and told them of his intention, and he consented 
to give the young editor a “ story ” whenever he could: 
stories of The Underground. “Simply as a relaxa- 
tion,” he told them, “from the heart-breaking work 
before me. If I don’t, Mrs. Elliot,” he told the young 
wife, “ I shall go mad — stark staring mad ! And writ- 
ing of theirs makes mine less.” 

“I believe you,” she replied, referring to the possi- 
bility of insanity, more truthfully expressing what she 
saw in the whitening hair and, haggard, wild eyes of 
the man not older than her husband in years, than 
tactfully hiding it. Roberts modified: 

“If I write of the misery of others, and only cause 
alleviation in the least, I shall feel happier. My plan 
is to visit every coal mining town, village, or hamlet in 
the United States. Helen’s folks were all mining 
people, you know?” 

The woman expressed languid surprise, and, if 
Roberts felt anything approaching lethargy he must 
have covered it deep with earnestness. 

“I shall visit homes made desolate by The Dread 
Invisible and the slate falls, and find out, if possible, 
what our much vaunted humanity does for those 
widows and orphans. Do you know, Mrs. Elliot, our 
civilization seems top heavy on the wrong side ? . . ” 

The woman smiled, but looked puzzled. Roberts 
explained: this sudden twist in his subject. 

“We make it almost criminal for any Soldier of In- 
dustry to get permanently wounded or killed at the 
Industrial Battle front, where heroism, self-sacrifice 
and forbearance are so common as to receive Indiffer- 
ence for medals.” 


A LITTLE BROOCH. 


89 


Mrs. Elliot fanned gently, and suggested very half- 
heartedly that “perhaps you are right, Mr. Roberts; 
but,” she added, “why criminal? 

Roberts’ eyes snapped. 

“Do we not compel the widow of the erstwhile law- 
abiding, hard-working miner, mechanic, or other wage- 
earner, mental or physical, to share common lot with 
the wife of the burglar and the murderer ? Do we no t 
place on our Public Beneficence such Publicity and 
utter SHAME that a self-respecting man or woman would 
rather die of slow starvation than endure it ? — in 
fact do die the slow, awful death of semi-starvation? 
Oh!” he hastened, a surging irony plainly evident to 
Mrs. Elliot, “the train of ills induced makes lots of 
choice for the burial certificate.” 

Mrs. Elliot shuffled uneasily. These were topics 
elemental in Roberts, in a sense repugnant to her. 

“I had never known that,” she replied. “ We surely 
pay sufficient tax that all our deserving poor should be 
well looked after. I heard Frank saying the other night 
that his tax was ” 

“Pardon me,” Roberts interposed, “you mistake 
me ... we pay enough — we are not inhuman 
enough to deny it when we know the purpose for which 
it is intended. We fight every tax but The Poor Tax, 
but I’ve the first sensible man to meet yet who fought 

against his share of that Our sin is of 

omission rather than commission. We pay our dues 
in this National Benevolent Fraternity: The Ancient 
Order of Adams and Eves:” — Mrs. Elliot smiled 
behind her fan — “and contentedly remain at home 
and read how many thousands were disbursed. We 


90 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


know little, and care less, of how, and to whom! Let 
me tell you, Mrs. Elliot, what you perhaps know by 
personal contact, the stigma we unconsciously place on 
our public charity defeats our purpose: those who 
deserve it, and whom we would like to have it will not 
accept it under such conditions. Let any intelligent 
invalid father and mother reduced to this extremity 
tell us all they know and I’m thinking our National 
Fraternity would set about formulating a new set of 
rules. 

“But that is aside. I mentioned it only because of 
late so many helpless victims of employees’ ignor- 
ance and disobedience, and employers’ greed, have 
been thrown on the world’s mercy, and I have heard 
it is not very susceptible to influence. You may tell 
Frank it is my intention to see as many of these as hap- 
pen in my circle of observation, since I believe the 
Mine- widow — I had almost said ‘Wife,’ ” he added 
with a grim smile — “comes nearest by her multipli- 
city to the heart of a contemporary Sorrower like me.” 

“Frank and you are so much alike in these matters, 
Mr. Roberts,” the woman responded with a stifled 
yawn. 

Roberts rose and stepped across the room to an 
onyx table on which his hat rested, and turned to grasp 
Mrs. Elliot’s hand at parting. 

“You must get married — and — forget,” she dim- 
pled, “there’s Evelyn ” 

Roberts shook his head. “You don’t know but 
Helen and I will yet pay you a visit together,” he said 
more hopefully, and went out. 


A LITTLE BROOCH. 


91 


In his circling Roberts had reached Pittsburg again, 
when men, gathered in groups spoke more or less 
sympathetically of an explosion at a mine not many 
miles away. . 

“Nearly two hundred men and boys lost . . . 

one only alive . . . he’s blinded.” 

“The same old story” came from another. “Gee! 
I’d hate to be a miner.” 

Said another: “ It’s harder on the women and kids.” 

Roberts purchased an evening paper, and, seated 
comfortably in his hotel lobby, perused, in common 
with a dozen others at the same moment, those details 
which to say the least are horrifying. Beside them the 
told imagination of a Poe were music; each beat of 
their grim tattoo a human soul sent hurriedly to meet 
its God; a home in nearly every case deprived of its 
breadwinner. Sufficient, therefore, is our reason for 
omitting detail. Fain are we to hurry our reader to 
scenes more pleasant, albeit, in our note ushering 
this tale before you,* we promised only “life as it really 
is.” We confess non-fulfillment of our purpose. 
Shadows darker than the shades of Hell would over- 
whelm these pages were they truly descriptive of mining 
life as it really is to-day in the gas-coal regions of Penn- 
sylvania and West Virginia, that of it which comprises 
the widows and orphans. 

This leads the author to ask you, since this question 
is indirectly of your solving, not less than the men 
directly in touch with the mines, when will you coerce 
miner and employer? From childhood a miner, such 
his father and brothers, from grease boy to super- 
intendent, the author adduces as basis of his 
♦First edition. 


92 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


assertion that it lies with The Public to stop, in a great 
measure, this wholesale slaughter. The majority of 
employers are indifferent, the men themselves too 
calloused. But think you of the children! 1 
Also this knowledge of actual mine life places us in 
substantial position to explain Robert Oakley’s death. 
For Oakley — no doubt on errand which took him 
quite frequently from mine to mine — was one of nearly 
two hundred sent into eternity through the explosion 
we have already referred to. It was proven later that 
Oakley had not been in the fated mine at the time of the 
holocaust of flame. Amid the confusion following he 
had slipped into the descending cage, unnoticed, with 
an overwhelming desire to save any who might have 
been left alive. His lamp beside him, they found him 
sitting by the roadside, the subtle “afterdamp” having 
caught him not many hundred yards from the “ bottom.” 
Painlessly, his head sunk on his breast, he had suddenly 
found himself unable to go either inward or outward, 
and had sat down to recuperate the fast-going strength. 
For it is improbable that Oakley knew the subtle gas, 
or rather a mixture of gases, which wafted into eternity 
his noble soul, or it is but reasonable to presume he 
would not have gone into it so far. Gladly would we 
omit mention of these facts, but they have so much 
bearing on what follows that, much as we desire, we 
may not. In our hurried passing we must get one sad 
glimpse. This done we shall leave for the columns of 
the daily press the unenviable necessity of recounting 
these incidents, and, to some future “Lincoln,” the 
inflexible determination to rouse Public Opinion to the 
horrors of this Underground Slavery with Death as 


A LITTLE BROOCH. 


93 


Master; to a future “Washington” the leadership of 
a host which shall free Mine Foremen and State Mine 
Inspectors from combined tyranny, allowing them to 
carry out to successful operation laws which these two 
classes of men would have obeyed if they could, to the 
end that little children such as yours and mine may not 
cry so often for the father who never comes. These 
men would make mining as safe as mortal men may 
make it; will, indeed, do so, when in some future day 
the three barriers, now insurmountable, shall be re- 
moved: Public Indifference, which reaches even into 
the Courts of Law; the greed of employer, and the 
destructive disobedience of the employee. 

Roberts, with a score of “professionals,” had been 
for two days at the scene of calamity, quietly aiding 
here and there wherever a dollar or a kind word would 
do good. In a little school house the authorities pre- 
pared for last journeys men who had resided but a short 
time in the village previous to the accident. Some of 
them as we have said, had not been in the mine even 
long enough to have their names recorded on the com- 
pany’s books, hence, except in a few instances, they 
were laid to rest among the “unknown.” 

But none was laid away, however, without the only 
effort possible being made to preserve such marks of 
identification as might be on him. These consisted of 
some things, which, despite the seriousness of the matter, 
almost brought laughter from the onlookers. But in 
an instant from another — perhaps a father — would be 
taken some little emblem of love that brought from the 
most calloused a sympathetic sigh and a silent tear. 
The reporters — Roberts among them — moved along 


94 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


the aisle, jotting down thought as it occurred to them 
anent these last trival tokens of mortality — extinguished 
love, the tangible evidences of that subtle thing we call 
“life” ever having been in that black lump of charred 
flesh. But who shall truthfully say what thing is trivial 
The pinprick may overthrow a dynasty and an em- 
pire, or change a world at peace to a world at war. 

In turn they came to one of the very few whose 
features remained almost as in life. The eyes were 
even closed, as in sleep, and the tongue which to some- 
one had perhaps but yesterday uttered words of love 
and tenderness, lay naturally — an uncommon thing. 

“In life he must have been a splendid specimen of 
manhood,” said Roberts, to the man whose duty it 
was to take inventory of such as may be in or on the 
clothing. 

“He sure was a fine chap,” the other responded, 
almost sympathetically pitying the sudden extinction 
of such useful, perfect, wage-earning life. “Some- 
body’ll miss him sure.” 

Uncommonly careful, the undertaker laid aside 
each piece of material, among them a letter, another 
meanwhile making annotation underneath a number 
given each body. The reporters gathered nearby made 
special remarks of this case for their respective papers, 
mentioning the man’s name as “Bob,” with which 
term the letter without envelope was started. He had 
evidently thrown the cover away. The news-gatherers . 
seemed to scent therein a column story or perhaps two. 

Roberts very seriously watched the scene, and, as 
each article was deposited in the specific group took it 
into his own hands, 


A LITTLE BROOCH. 


95 


First there came a combination tool — well worn — 
such as mechanics and men having to do with machinery 
affect — and other things all pointing to the same con- 
clusion with regard to the man’s occupation — then a 
tiny memo, which held only record — a considerable 
period back — of work done, but not at that mine. 
Then, from the inside pockets of the coat a letter with- 
out envelope, which we have already referred to, 
evidently written in a woman’s hand, and a little brooch, 
old fashioned, but solid gold, well worn, and in the form 
of two hearts entwined, and some inscription thereon, 
similar to a monogram. Also a few dimes. 

Roberts took the brooch in his hand, and for the first 
time evinced interest. Some of the others snickered 
slightly, and he scowled at them. One suggested a 
sweetheart,” and Roberts told him he’d never make 
a detective: “The pattern is out of date twenty years.” 
Then to the official: 

“ Can I take these things where there is more light ? ” 
The man nodded. Roberts wore glasses, and had 
poor eyesight at best. 

When he reached a lamp, Roberts stood under its 
broad green shade, and held the shawl pin in its rays, 
and his hand shook and his knees trembled. 

“If this isn’t my mother’s brooch the one coinci- 
dence in ten million is before me, and Fate,” he mut- 
tered hoarsely, “has of all men chosen me for her par- 
ticular sport If it is the thing I think it 

is, and there is any address in the letter from that poor 
fellow’s pocket, my search is practically ended.” 

He put the pin carefully in his pocket and held up 
the letter. Evidently the man had torn off part of the 


96 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


address corner when opening it, one corner having the 
starting point inscribed being burnt. Of the address 

three letters alone remained : Was . The man was 

unaccounted for on the roll of the Company’s employees 
which fact coincided with the letter. 

Roberts turned its pages and came to the signa- 
ture. It was simply a woman’s given name, and 
mentioned two children named “ Bobbie ” and ‘ ‘Tressy’ ’ 
but the fact that the signature on a postscript was 
Helen,” despite the introduction of two unknown 
children, sent the blood receding from Roberts’ face. 
He staggered pale, trembling, to the group at the dead 
tables. The three links had started a chain too ob- 
viously suggestive of solution to be ignored. 

‘‘ Don’t take that body to the trench,” he commanded, 
and the men looked at him, questioning momentarily 
his seriousness. 

“Do you mean that?” the undertaker queried. 

“I mean it,” returned Roberts, emphatically. 
“Send it to Riverview Cemetery: have it placed in a 
vault to await further instructions.” 

“Can’t do it. Mister,” came gruffly, “much as I’d 
like to ’commodate you ” ; and Roberts, forgetting that 
the man didn’t know him, just stared blankly. 

“We’re only allowed thirty dollars for each ^ stiff’,” 
came brutally in addition, and the man went on in- 
differently with his gruesome task. “The Company 
only allows the same amount for all.” 

Roberts touched one of the newspaper men on the 
shoulder. “I saw you with a pen, Scotten,” he sug- 
gested, “wiU you please let me have it a moment?” 

With his attention drawn to a group entering with 


A LITTLE BROOCH. 


97 


more bodies at the door, the reporter mechanically 
handed the fountain pen to Roberts, with a casual 
glance and remark that he looked white. 

^‘Then I belie my feelings,’’ came the answer, with 
a poor attempt at cheerfulness and a smile: feel 

hlue^ my boy; of a decided ultramarine color is my 
soul, just now,” he added, laying his hand on the other’s 
shoulder. 

Scotten grinned and went to see if the ' ‘latest were 
anything uncommon.” Roberts sat down and placed 
a check-book on his knee. A minute later he handed a 
detached slip from it to the undertaker, and received 
a look of doubt as to the worth of the paper. He 
glanced at one of the men who knew Roberts personally 
and, receiving a nod of assurance, said that the amount 
stated would be amply sufficient for the purpose. 

“If anyone with a better claim to him and this letter 
and things turns up,” Roberts admonished, “just send 
them up to North Braddock.” 

He gave the number of his residence, and turned to 
go, then stopped a moment to shake hands with his 
companions of the pencil and pad. He had in a great 
degree recovered his composure; his face beamed 
hopefully. 

“I’m going to do a little detective work, boys,” he 
told them, almost boyish in his frame of mind. He 
pointed to the unmarred body. “I’m going to find, 
with the help of God,” his voice sank suddenly, and 
remembering his former failures, he corrected: “I’m 
going to try to find the home of that man; the woman 
and the children he left. ... ” He started a 

§t^p fprward, ai^d they lopked after hina with the 


98 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


longing of comrades, and he waved his hand from the 
doorway: ‘‘Good by, fellows: good by.” 

Scotten waved an answer, and one of the others 
called: “Good by, old chap, and good luck!” their 
minds all too engrossed to hunt deep for motives. They 
thought Roberts a little luny any how. 

While the two things: the brooch and the postscript 
signed “Helen” : seemed to oJffer a solution to Roberts, 
when he looked closely he had the choice of being ab- 
solutely baffled again at the very start, or placing him- 
self in the Enoch Arden class. He tried hard to cast 
this last thought aside but it would stick in spite of his 
self-assurance, and bobbed up serenely clear at many 
points. 

The letter was started “Dear Bob,” and signed 
“From Your Affectionate Wife.” Then the writer 
had grown clearer of handwork, and used ink in prefer- 
ence to pencil, also signed herself as “ Helen.” Neither 
did the postscript bear direct co-relation to the page 
preceding. “But the brooch!” Roberts urged to 
himself; and Conservatism prompted: “And two 
children.” “But,” Roberts insisted: “My Helen 

was that way when ” And again Conservatism: 

“That probably only accounts for one; either illicit 
love or marriage could account for the other, and 
nothing else.” 

Roberts thought a moment, reasoning: “ The hand- 
writing wasn’t as clear, though very similar in the first 
part and the last, and may have been written by 
someone else.” To which was offered: “One half of 


A LITTLE BROOCH. 


99 


your writing does not always look like the rest; cap- 
ricious, tired, you change the style, or tool.” 

“But the brooch, and Helen!” Roberts flung at 
himself, “and I’ll be more satisfied anyway for it — 
it might have been twins 1” He almost felt happy at 
the very idea. So he started, the burning desire he had 
before felt smothered to an appreciable extent. 

Fast as the fast- flying monsters of the rail could 
take him he journeyed from one to the other of many 
towns and villages having as part of their name the 
syllable found on the letter, after he had made an ex- 
haustive search in each. Still following this clue, and 
then that, — all vague threads in a tangled skein of 
circumstances — we leave him, full of unparalleled 
perseverance in spite of repeated failures. 


X. 


“PEDDLE OR STARVE.” 

Adversity is not without comforts and hopes .... 
Virtue is like precious odors, most fragrant when they 
are . . crushed; for prosperity doth best discover 

vice, hut adversity doth best discover virtue. 

— Francis Bacon. 

The stars come nightly to the sky. 

The dews fall on the lea; 

Nor time, nor space, nor deep nor high 
Can keep my own away from me. 

— Anon. 

TN a small house on the outskirts of a mining town 

in Indiana a little girl and a small boy sat watch- 
ing their mother and aunt respectively embroider chair 
cushions. What had been at one time of her life a 
pleasant pastime was become wholly a necessity, even 
as at long intervals the precarious trade of mine ma- 
chine runner had brought the work to the family’s 
aid temporarily. 

She was doing it for bread for the little folks at her 
knee, and so did another sister when not on other er- 
rands. For neither women was this phase of life new; 
both had labored for bread before. 

Outjalong a path running into a larger road, and 
losing itself among the distant buildings, came a woman. 


‘‘PEDDLE OR STARVE.’^ 


lOI 


Through the open door the boy was first to see her, 
and rising, ran shouting gleefully to meet her. Follow- 
ing him the woman who had been sewing came to the 
door. 

“Any news?” she asked, as the other came near the 
building, an imploring look on her face. 

“Nothing again,” came the reply, with a trembling 
voice and a twitching lip. 

Both women went into the house. The woman who 
held the embroidery sat in the chair she had vacated, 
but she did not sew. Like one in a dream she held 
the needle poised. It was plain she had long been ex- 
pectantly hoping for one of these trips to town to result 
in something very vital. She seemed suddenly to have 
lost all interest in her work. Laying it aside she walked 
over to a window, silently, and for a long minute looked 
out wistfully into the east. Yet the other, really, one 
would have expected to see more downcast. She it was 
to whom this matter of “no mail this morning” was 
particularly pertinent, since he who both women ex- 
pected news of was to the woman at the window only a 
sister’s husband, the other held the place of wife. She, 
however, was one of those beings who are favored or 
otherwise — according to the point of view — who 
seem neither capable of great elation nor depression; 
who cannot suffer so intensely as another, neither can 
they know exquisite joy over anything whatsoever. 

At length the woman at the window resumed her seat. 

“You must write to-morrow to the firm, and find out 
where he is — if they know,” she said. 

Fortunate for those two women they didn’t purchase 
the daily papers, hence were spared much additional 


102 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


suspense which would have most certainly entered into 
their minds therefrom. Also were they some distance 
removed from any house, nor frequented they with 
neighbor women since they toiled almost incessandy of 
late, and when he had been there they had no need of 
neighboring; his company was all sufficient, and they 
had not been there so very long. 

For a few minutes the sisters talked quietly before 
resuming their sewing. The two children were al- 
ready at play, after being chided by the mothers for 
childish boisterousness. The exuberance of untroubled 
childhood seems to be utterly past comprehension at 
such a time, veritable mockery of Fate’s cruel thrust, 
as indeed it is. Joyousness is Growth, Sorrow is Death, 
and Youth is synonym for all Life, and its mood not 
infrequently at war with its contrast. Forbear, Nerv- 
ous Mother, forbear! 

Each day was but a repetition of the day preceding, 
until as the days wore into weeks, in only that way they 
do when you feel positive the next day will bring what 
you are looking for, and failing, surely the next^ the 
sisters were fain to cry as another had done before them : 
“I have known some happy hours, but all now seems 
to lead to sorrow, and not only the cups of wine, but of 
milk, seem drugged with poison for me 1 I do not court 
these things, they come!” Afar, another soul was 
lifting up its voice in a similar cry, unable to see or 
understand the mysterious Providence working thus 
harshly to bring joy out of sorrow — from grief and 
separation an enduring reunion destined to remain 
unbroken this side of the grave. They could not see 
the angles of destiny coming to a point the manner of 


‘‘PEDDLE OR STARVE.” 103 

which was known only to the all- wise Ruler of the uni- 
verse and our humble lives. But it is well. The gold 

— undefiled — comes only by way of the furnace. 
The true serenity of life, as of the elements, is the child 
of the seething storm. 

‘‘To-morrow one of us must go and peddle again, 
the same as when Bob was off work so long,” suggested 
the elder sister. “It’s either peddle or starve, for the 
last cent of Bob’s last pay is gone,” she added grimly. 
“ The only thing I hate is the children who call so after 
you. ...” 

“Yes,” replied Sarah; “but if they do it’s honest, 
and all right, and that’s a lot . . . even if we 
don’t get willing help in makin’ sales.” 

“It seems to me,” Helen continued as she stitched 
regularly, “that the world hasn’t much time for any- 
one who is spunky and independent of spirit — if 
they’re poor or sick. They seem to think that a change 
in their income should mean a change in their disposi- 
tion. . . . That’s the way I’ve found it” 

“Well,” responded the other, “they’ll tell you beg- 
gars shouldn’t be choosers . . . and they seem 

to class everybody that has to sell anything in the beggar 
class . . . that is if you can’t start up in a big way 

— a store or something. . . But what do we need 

to care,” she rippled real hopefully. “We’ll surely 
hear from Bob soon, and then some other poor devil 
can have my job.” 

Helen looked at her with a bare trace of laughter. 

“Why, Sally!” she drawled. 

“It’s a fact,” Sally responded, though it wasn’t, 
then: “And you write to-morrow, and I’ll go out and 
see what I can do.” 


104 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


The next day Sarah started with a sample and an 
order book, and Helen did the writing as they had 
planned. She made inquiries of two firms: one for 
whom Robert Oakley worked, and one in whose mine 
he had been delegated to demonstrate the efficiency 
of their specific mining machine. The latter stated 
that he had been there one day, but, finding the ma- 
chine had been delayed, had gone to a mining town 
farther north, “since we, as yet, have no boarding ac- 
commodations for even our own men. Perhaps,’’ the 
letter continued, hiding in indirect sentence what the 
kindly soul — whoever he may be who wrote it — 
probably thought otherwise, “ perhaps your husband saw 
a favorable opportunity for temporary employment, 
and is working at one of the mines somewhere near. 
We trust you will hear from him before we get an op- 
portunity to advise you further.” 

Whoever wrote the letter to Mrs. Oakley knew how to 
ward off pain. Also had he gleaned from the woman’s 
communication that she was ignorant as regarded 
the explosion. He made no mention of this. From 
the firm who employed Oakley came the following: 

“We haven’t received a report from your husband, 
Mr. Robert Oakley, since the 14th ult. Our shipment 
may have had something to do with this, as it has been 
delayed in reaching its destination. As soon as we 
receive the first report from Mr. Oakley it will give us 
pleasure to advise you of his whereabouts, if (which 
is very improbable) you do not hear from him first.” 

And the Reader will bear in mind that neither of 
these two writers knew that Robert Oakley was even 
in the near vicinity of the ill-fated mine. For either to 


‘TEDDLE OR STARVE.” 


105 

have conveyed to the women a hint tha he was perhaps 
a victim of the catastrophe would have been not only 
an assumption in a case demanding nothing but fact, 
but would bave been inhumanly cruel — and our busi- 
ness men generally, coal operators to the union not- 
withstanding, are essentially kind. Much they must 
do often hurts them equally as the victim of the business 
blow. 

These letters, rather than creating alarm, added to 
the belief that the husband and wage earner for the 
family held aloof from writing pending more favorable 
news. 

The women, with patience our mothers only can 
exhibit, decided to wait. In fact they could do nothing 
else. From day to day they lived with the utmost 
economy, eating the least, and the poorest food a human 
being may take into his stomach and live. Their 
nearest neighbor even didn’t have an inkling as to their 
semi-starvation, so desperately determined were they 
to remain without the stigma of asking Public Relief; 
hoping that each day would bring the long-expected 
money order from Oakley. Never before had he been 
half as long without sending a letter, although he had 
the average workman’s antipathy to ink. 

Helen went on sewing and embroidering; Sarah, 
less sensitive to insult, doing all the selling when she 
wasn’t receiving contempt and rebuff. This phase of 
public selling away and of cooperative endeavor at 
home brought in a little while to that household more 
bitter experience than they would have received in a 
lifetime otherwise. For if there be hid behind the 
Mask of Kindness the soul-destroying, sensuous Man 


io6 THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 

Lust, start your wife — (if she be fairly provided with 
Womanly beauty) — out to find it. Spots in the 
Garden of Life well-favored by the gods, well looked 
upon by men, will suddenly spout the poisonous Flower 
of Desire, and, after the manner of their Fertilizer 
whisky and the Devil: will call the prompting by 
another name. 

Sarah had come in contact with a few of the species, 
and was quite wary of them all, as well befitted her occu- 
pation and helpless condition. 

Also this frame of mind extended to a man who ac- 
costed her kindly one day: a man unusually careworn, 
yet obviously well-to-do. Despite the reprobates men 
generally were kinder than the women! Now, my fair 
Reader, don’t take offence. There may be — in fact 
there is — a physiological reason for this paradox. I 
say men were kinder than women — to Sarah. Women 
would have been more sympathetic to her husband, no 
doubt, had he been in Sarah’s place and pursuing her 
purpose with them. 

And Mrs. Oakley had learned to distinguish with 
almost unfailing accuracy between the man that bought 
of her because he was drawn to her by her clean and 
tidy appearance and obvious desire to be self-support- 
ing, and really desired to give her a helping hand, and 
the other kind. She almost immediately placed the 
Stranger in Class A. He was importunate to an em- 
barrassing degree, but he did not buy. He was, how- 
ever, uncommonly kind; offering to carry her bundle 
until the last one should be distributed. 

‘‘He says something about a city paper for which he 
is writing a something about the miners,” 


‘‘PEDDLE OR STARVE.’^ 


107 


said Sarah that evening. “He would have kept me 
talking a long time, but I had to go and leave him.” 

“It’s strange the papers can’t leave poor people 
alone,” replied the elder sister, busily engaged prepar- 
ing the evening meal. Then, “ Has he gone away ?” 

“No; he said he would stay until we could tell him 
about ourselves, as we were ‘exceptionally good sub- 
jects for a sketch.’ ” 

“Sarah,” said Helen, somewhat sternly, “the man 
is impudent. I hope you didn’t give him any encour- 
agement.” 

Sarah looked abashed. 

“I did; it was the only answer he would take.” 

Helen placed the knives and forks beneath the plates 
setting, simple as was the meal, on a swan-white table- 
cloth. 

“But Robert isn’t exactly a miner; nor are we,” she 
returned, the shadow of a smile crossing her face. 

Sarah explained: “It is — er — the mining people’s 
women folks I should have said,” her face crimsoning 
with self-accusation for the privilege given the man, 
and for which action her sister’s attitude had made her 
ashamed. 

“I’m very sorry,” continued the latter, “but we can’t 
do anything else than let him come — now — although 
I don’t see that we can tell him much. 

Sarah explained, drawing her chair meanwhile to 
the supper Helen had just placed on the clean linen: 
“It ain’t the way the men do underground he wants 
to find out, but about how the women and children is 
cared for, as so many is left by accidents.” 

Helen’s face paled suddenly. Her hand, partly 


io8 THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 

lifted to her mouth, fell almost helpless to the table. 
Her sister’s words had brought to mind an accident 
which had, indeed, made her only too well qualified 
to speak on the subject. Also, to her, being more sen- 
sitive and discerning, the incident as Sarah had just 
now expressed it, had suddenly loomed with portentious 
possibilities. But regarding her surmisings she re- 
mained silent, although hope had died slowly as day 
after day passed after the Firm’s replies. 

The family invoked a blessing on the food before 
them. Bobbie, who had been busy at play, yet, by 
that indefinable method we know but cannot under- 
sand, had heard all the grown-ups were speaking of, 
asked if that man were his papa. 

His mother turned and was silent. Helen answered. 

“No, Bobbie, but Papa will maybe come home to- 
morrow or the next day.” 

The woman sighed, and, elbow crooked and set on 
the table, and her cheek resting in the open palm, she 
ceased eating, and thought and thought. Her ap- 
peasing words to the little boy were a lie to her heart. 
In truth both women felt the same, but one less poign- 
antly, in each an intuition which she vainly tried to 
hide from the other, that somewhere their Breadwinner 
was at rest. In each womanly heart suspense had 
placed an irremovable image of a new-made grave, 
but a sister’s love constantly made the lips belie it. 
Sarah broke the silence following little Bobbie’s refer- 
ence to his Papa. Said she with a trace of a smile : 

“The man said his was a muck-raking paper — 
whatever that is — and that they sometimes paid well 
for their information. What did he mean by that, 
Helen?” 


“PEDDLE OR STARVE.” 109 

Helen considered a moment, pouring a weak solu- 
tion she called “coffee” into her sister’s cup. 

“I don’t know,” she said at length, “unless it is that 
whenever anyone hunts up and writes down a lot of 
truth and facts that have been partly buried, it gener- 
ally creates a ‘stink,’ as they call it. And those who 
get most of the nasty smell naturally object. . . It’s 

always been the same, I guess. . . Somebody al- 
ways objects to have their nice grass mounds prodded 
for fear the hole whould let the stink out.” 

“I’ve noticed that at Uncle’s,” Sarah responded, 
taking Helen literally, “with that old stable of his. It 
had one or two old hills, and they used to get covered 
with the nicest green grass — it seemed a pity to scatter 
it all over the garden.” 

Helen looked past her sister, smiling at her quaint 
obtuseness, which besides being the very antithesis of 
Helen’s mind, was become almost unnoticed owing to 
its frequency. Bobbie and the little girl asked for more 
pieces, and she stopped while she cut them. She laid 
the knife aside and sat down. 

“ Dirty places have a way of making long green stuff 
grow,” she murmured almost to herself. Then, 
louder: “ You didn’t say we’d take pay ?” 

“No,” Sarah replied. “I didn’t know who or what 
he was.” 

“ That’s right ” the piercing black eyes snapped 

coaxingly as to a child: “ Don’t you ever do it from no 
man, unless — unless he buys a cushion — you never 
can tell what’s behind a man’s dollar when it’s given 
to a dependent woman.” Lower, and almost in 
prayer, the earnest mother, Protectress of Virtue — 


1 10 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


for this little group the Head even as Sarah was the 
Body — uttered : 

“Oh, God! send Robert home! 

Helen was not fearsome for herself, but she was for 
the unintention of the other. 

Sarah had not heard the invocation. She resumed 
her topic. 

“ I told him that we’d only had to do this a few times 
when Bob was off work so long, and now, but he said 
even a little would help, perhaps to do some other poor 
soul a good turn. He said his aim was to get better 
treatment for them as was unfortunate and tried hard 
to help themselves, like us when we get in a pinch, 
and worse for the degraded sots who would neither 
‘weave nor spin,’ yet was strong and able.” 

Despite Sarah’s dullness she had a keen sense of 
pride in her and her Sister’s effort, inculcated most of 
it from the master-mind. 

Helen folded the tablecloth and shook it at the door, 
then, returning, sat down and took up her work. 

“He said that in some places there was practically 
no difference made now between ’em, and that by 
printin’ folks’ actual experiences he hoped to make it 
better for them who deserved better.” 

“Well,” replied Helen, “the man mayn’t be worthy, 
but his purpose surely is, as we can truthfully say, and 
anything you can tell him you ought to.” 

“Me?” exclaimed Sarah. 

“ Of course. How could I, when I’ve never been out 
of the lot since we moved here. And — and — ” she 
said frankly — “I don’t believe I’d care to, no matter 
what his cause.” 


“PEDDLE OR STARVE/^ 


III 


“ Thaf s so/^ Sarah acquiesced, satisfied in Helen’s 
decisions not alone as regarded Helen, but nearly always 
awaited and abided in them for herself also. 

And the matter was dropped, awaiting the stranger’s 
advent on the morrow; also the long-looked- for letter 
which would surely come. And it did. Impatient 
Reader. 


Special i^ote hp ttje 

For the remaining portion of this story I am indebted 
to the courtesy of George Roberts, Esq., at the present 
time one of those men who by activity, precept and 
example, are doing much to make this world a better 
place to live in. The greater part of what follows had 
been written with original intention of incorporating it 
with the other incidents preceding in the series he was 
writing, and which we have mentioned hitherto. But, 
through later events involving Mr. Roberts and others 
— and which were unseen at the time — he decided not 
to publish it. And, indeed, so have we, excepting only 
such portions as have direct bearing on our own story 
of Mr. Roberts’ life during these years. Moreover, 
the incidents, sad, pleasing and romantic as they may 
seem to the Reader, were gained for your perus^, and 
a fitting end to this story, only after our promise to sink 
the real identity of these people behind fictitious names. 
This we have done; and the manuscript never having 
appeared in print — although rightfully belonging to 
the matter previously submitted to the weekly paper — 
we shall not therefore be accounted guilty of violating 
friendly confidence, nor of plagiarism. 

And right here it is perhaps most fitting that public 
thanks be given to the gentleman we have called 
“Roberts,” for his ministrations in behalf of this work. 
We believe the intelligent Reader will heartily concur 
with us in our opinion that nothing we could possibly 


SPECIAL NOTE. 


113 

have written or imagined would have given the perfect 
‘‘finish’’ to his tale which we pride ourselves as having 
wrought by adhering strictly to Mr. Roberts’ manu- 
script. Thus have we, in humble way, added another 
link (if, indeed, one be needed, which we doubt) in the 
chain of evidence that truth is at all times stranger than 
fiction. We regret only that easily seven-eighths of Mr. 
Roberts’ manuscript is of necessity omitted. Decid- 
edly interesting in itself, being almost solely ethical, it 
is not pertinent to the subject on which our story treats; 
hence, greatly against our desire, we have omitted all 
except such as bears directly on our own characters. 
We commence near the end of the gentleman’s writings 
as submitted to our care, making no apology for an 
absolute necessity which Mr. Roberts, equally with 
myself, will understand. 


XI. 


Beneath A Willow Tree. 

By ^‘George Roberts.” 

“Aw unknown man, respectably dressed,^^ 

That was all that the record said. 

When will the question let us rest, 

Is it fault of ours that the man was dead?^^ 

- (H. H.) 

CINCE perusing the foregoing part of this work, 
as written by Mr. Reynolds, I deem it unneces- 
sary to recite the incidents leading to my wandering 

so far out as Indiana, to the town of W . I had 

visited and made inquiries in every town, village, and 
hamlet in the coal- mining countries, which had as part 
of their names the syllable found on the dead miner’s 
letter. And, although there yet remained a slight 
possibility that one of such places as had a compound 
name — as instance: Washington Heights — might 
yet reward my persistence, yet in truth I must confess 
that I started on this second round with little hope of 
carrying out my plan as outlined in the Pennsylvania 
village school house — turned temporarily into a 
morgue. 

But perhaps you have remarked the subtlety of — of 
Luck (we may as well call it that as anything else, 
since no name defines it satisfactorily) concerning a 


BENEATH A WILLOW TREE. 


115 

search for any particular object where there are a 
number of others identical? 

You haven’t! Well try it sometime. 

Nine times out of the ten the particular apple in the 
barrel or the marble in the bag will turn up last! I 
have particularly remarked this in a set of books I have 
identical as to size and color, yet I have never once 
been fortunate in finding the particular volume without 
searching them all, since the number in this case gives 
no index of the matter desired. 

And here, in a crisis affecting the destiny of a number 
of people, was the same “thing” taking place, much 
to my humility. From each place I returned to my 
home just long enough to give Elliot such material as 
I had cared to indite, and see that affairs at my foundry 
were running smoothly. The writing I had learned to 
like very much, and it passed many a weary hour away, 
and made my burdened search for health and Helen 
lighter. Also it gave me a better grasp on the in- 
finitesimal insignificance of any one human being in 
this great country of ours. For, dear Reader, lest you 
grow over proud, allow me to say: 

In the “pond” where you live you may (if you will 
pardon the term) be quite a big “frog,” and cause con- 
siderable commotion when you move about; but get 
into the vast sea of humanity, my friend, if you really 
want to get your correct measure. My experiences in 
this line would fill several volumes, and doubtless make 
interesting reading all, even as a tithe put to paper 
helped fill Elliot’s Weekly during several years. I also 
expected to continue the work along that line for a great 
many more years, but verily we know not what a day 


ii6 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


will bring forth. Destiny — in that those suddenly 
thrust, and lovingly, into my care should have their 
utmost interests conserved — compelled cessation be- 
fore midnight of that day, and all my attention directed 
henceforth to my foundry, which isn’t overly large. 

But that is running ahead of my story, which brings 
us to the town mentioned on a fearfully hot morning 
in August, and to a young woman whom ill fortune 
had compelled to battle for her own and her child’s 
bread. To many she was simply “only a peddler”: 
to me a heroine. 

The noon whistles had quite a long time past been 
sounded, which without doubt explains the weariness 
obvious in her face. At least I had rather attribute 
it to that than unkindness. 

From her appearance the woman had travelled over 
a considerable portion of the town before entering a 
public square to rest on one of its benches, where with 
a sigh she laid down the articles she carried. I spoke 
to her, and, startled, surprised, at this over-confidence 
of a stranger (insofar as concerned his ability to engage 
her in conversation) she at first answered my questions 
only in monosyllables. 

The woman was fair to look upon. Despite appar- 
ent hardship her cheek had lost none of the bloom 
synonymous with the flower of womanhood. A round 
chin, tiny, dimpled, sat prettily beneath a mouth as 
finely curved as any ever delighting the eye of an artist. 
On her finger I noted a wedding ring. 

She rose to resume her journeying. Respectfully I 
offered my aid for the rest of the day, and just as re- 
spectfully it was declined. But before losing sight of 
her I exacted a promise to see me on the morrow, 


BENEATH A WILLOW TREE. 


117 

To obtain the promised interview — to receive from 
direct source the facts I had made it my mission to 
procure — I climbed the hills marking the sub-division 
from the town proper, then along a level stretch of road 
to the cottage — the home of the “peddler woman” 
and her sister. 

There, beneath a wide-spreading willow, I gleaned 
additional facts for my story, which in this case, as 
in all others, varies only as vary circumstance and loca- 
tion. 

(Here again we have of necessity left out many pages of the Roberts 
manuscript.) 

W. H. R. 

In those indefinite pauses when a rapid shorthand 
learned at college placed my writing faster than the 
woman’s verbal story I remarked with much interest 
a similitude of the woman before me to one I had dearly 
loved. Looking her straight in the face the likeness 
was not absolutely missing, but an oblique view brought 
out strongly certain peculiarities I had never remarked 
in another. Also, there was the same quaint catch in 
her voice. But at length she stopped, and said: 

“I don’t think there is anything else I can tell you 
that you want.” 

She rose to go, and I shut my note-book, mechani- 
cally drew around it a wide rubber band, and shoved 
it and the pencil into an outer pocket, meanwhile my 
eyes resting so long on the woman’s that I grew ashamed 
and she looked away and shut out the objective. The 
children were playing near us. 

“ Pardon me,” I started, “ but you will not be offended 
if I ask you another question; since those we have 
spoken on relate your experiences in so far as they come 


ii8 THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 

in contact with the Public only. This is really pri- 
vate 

She nodded, perhaps not quite comprehending, and 
I, not knowing just which way to enter a delicate do- 
main remarked on her youth, which, while being ob- 
vious and truthful, seemed to please her; ‘^and really 
seem to be too young to be the mother of so large a girl.” 

“She isn’t mine,” she acknowledged, drawing to her 
the little boy. It was plain the boy was very much 
beloved and the source of much warrantable matronly 
pride. She added: “ This rogue is all I have: the other 
is my sister’s little girl.” 

“I had thought so,” I told her, glad that the diffi- 
culty had been so easily overcome, “for one reason, too, 
the children are so dissimilar. ” 

This the woman didn’t seem to understand. She 
looked down at the ground, evidently lost in reflection 
of the story she had just told regarding her husband, 
his long periods away from home, his work, and many 
other things, all tainted with a sense of fear anent his 
long absence, and the dearth of news. Previous 
questions had brought out the fact that the absent man 
had much inherent nobleness of heart, sensing and 
acting the part of noblesse oblige toward the little girl 
playing near me, and toward her widowed mother, to a 
nearer perfection than many who will perhaps read the 
Latin phrase and understand it, as this humble miner 
did not. 

The woman had lapsed into a heavy silence follow- 
ing her explanation with regard to the children, her 
eyes raised from the ground and directed toward the 
darkening side of the universe. Her attitude, the 
drawn look of her otherwise fair face, the pensive 


BENEATH A WILLOW TREE. 


ng 

longing, longing, all told as plainly as if she had uttered 
the thoughts aloud: He has gone that way!” 

“He was never so long before?” I asked, and she 
turned her big, sad eyes full on me as if to question how 
I knew her thoughts. 

Knew them! Oh, God, who can mistake the dumb 
pain of Anguished-suspense in Woman’s face or Man’s ? 

My question was prompted with a heartfelt desire 
to aid — if possible. It brought only added pain, and 
the baffling information that he went sometimes weeks 
without writing, having in a marked degree that nat- 
ural repugnance toward pens and ink which seems to 
be characteristic of men who toil manually. 

Evidently my expression had aroused every atom of 
doubt regarding myself, and fear regarding him. She 
suddenly clasped her hands together in a way that tore 
my heart to see, and asked point blank: as if it had 
never before occurred to her: 

“You haven’t — oh, you haven’t come to tell us he’s 
dead?” 

Her black eyes set on mine, and I assured her I had 
no ulterior design, which was truth exact. I knew 
nothing then of the coincidence bridging the vastness 
of Impossibility; and, seeing the woman’s intense feel- 
ing, when I did know I suffered intensely, actually 
physicially and mentally, to withhold from her what I 
feared a certainty. I knew dilatoriness would not add 
one jot to the poignancy, yet stood every chance of 
preparing the poor soul to hear what, as she a moment 
later told me herself, she feared. But in confidence, 
apart from the little folks, who had removed some dis- 
tance in their play, but anon came to us then away 
again, she whispered: 


120 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


“ I wouldn’t have Sister know that I think something’s 
happened to him for the world ! She never could stand 
a hard blow that way; even the fear of it has caused — ” 

Then, abruptly changing the subject proper she re- 
marked that “in his trade there’s so many places he 
goes to without us knowing sometimes, and may be 
. . . . may be get killed ...” which bare 

suggestion brought tears surging from her eyes without 
the formality of crying. 

I felt such embarrassment that once or twice I was 
prompted to leave, but in a minute she turned to me 
again, her features showing nothing particularly of the 
emotion, adding, as if she had not stopped : 

“ But the suspense is better than — better than — 
that! Oh, it is better than that^^ she echoed. “If I 
thought we would never see him again, what would we 
do?” 

The woman stopped again, overcome by a deeper 
emotion than before. Her poor body quivered and 
heaved convulsively. My words, his absence, her 
acute imagination had lent reality where as yet none 
existed. Silently I had stolen some distance away, 

and looked and looked east where the 

great carbon fields pour out death in invisible form for 
the brave soldiers of the Underground, who must 
work while we enjoy the fruits of their labor. Then 
at the woman and those dear little ones at play, and 
something within me said : This is but one ! What, 
Mortal, could you see them all? 

I turned to see the woman awaiting me, her eyes hard 
set across the distant hills, her lips still slightly aquiver, 
herhands wringing her apron as the dumb anguish of 


BENEATH A WILLOW TREE. 


I2I 


Anticipation wrung her soul. She smiled the faintest, 
and said : 

“That was foolish of me, when I don’t know — for 

sure — but the thoughts of it ” She shuddered : 

this least sensitive of the two sisters: and yet I have 
heard fair lips suggest, “those mining women could not 
possibly ]eel such a thing as we would!” Indeed! 
Mrs. Oakley, but you are giving the lie to the egotis- 
tical supposition, thinks I, then turning: 

“I, too, have known suspense,” I interposed, “and 
can perhaps more deeply sympathize with you than 
most. Suspense is ” 

Let who have known it fill the pause. 

I stopped, seeing the woman turn in apparent trepi- 
dation, half-afraid of a Presence I could not see. 
Once only did I catch a glimpse of it, when, with dark, 
lustrous eyes it raised a warning finger, ostensibly to a 
fallen hair strand. 

“That’s my sister,” almost proudly adduced the 
woman; “would you like to — to — see her? She 
could tell you lots of things for your paper, I reckon, 
as she’s seen a lot of the dark side, too, being a widow 
since her husband was killed.” 

“ Yes, if you please, in a minute,” I replied, repressing 
a smile at the quaint expression in doubling a truth, 
“but — to thank her as well as you for this privilege,” 
I turned. Then again, seeing no way out of it I blurted : 

“You look so much like a girl I used to know that for 
a moment I wondered if it could be possible that you 
and she — but then, it can hardly be — so far from the 
city — ” 

I was interrupted by a little voice near me. The boy 


122 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


had brought his soldiers of wood and dropped the regi- 
ment with a thud that brought shame to “ drum major 
and pity from the “general.” 

“ Does you live in der city ? ” 

I bent to the little chap, and helped him form his 
“killed” soldiers anew in battle array, and told him 
I did — sometimes. “ Would you like to ? ” 

“Yes;” then ‘no, tir,” he replied undecided, evidently 
quite satisfied with the little cottage and the women who 
presided over it, and the large open fields lying be- 
tween it and a distant range of low-lying hill. “But 
dat’s w’ere Dad dot dese; an’ Auntie says she will dett 
some more an’ a wubber ball when she does to de 
city tause Uncle’s dere, burwied, so he is.” 

I expressed sympathy, and looked up in time to catch 
a glimpse of The Vision with dark eyes and darker hair. 
She stood for a bare moment at the door, ostensibly to 
throw away some “scraps.” But as she turned I saw 
the warning finger raised again, and remarked that the 
woman nearer me grew restless. The color came and 
went in her face, and I could see plainly the semi- 
hypnotic control of the master mind, and the contend- 
ing emotion of desire to please us both. I determined 
suddenly to end the interview. I pulled out my watch, 
and snapped it shut without seeing the time. 

“I believe I must go now,” I said, rising, “or miss 
my train.” 

The woman rose, too, forgetting in her confusion 
to repeat the invitation she had previously extended to 
see her sister. I also felt similar in a lesser degree, 
which accounted for my forgetting what the little boy 
had said. He looked up at me at if expecting me to 


BENEATH A WILLOW TREE. 


123 


say something. Failing in his anticipation he, childlike, 
carried on the conversation, while I still lingered, my 
man-soul loath to leave such a splendid group of hu- 
manity alone, temporarily uncared for, and, from 
casual analysis of certain utterances during the woman’s 
story, in sore need verging horribly close destitution. 
I would have offered alms — or, if she would have 
accepted payment following the deliberate lie I had told, 
I would have been glad — but, truthfully I was afraid 
to offer either to femininity so independent of spirit. 
There was but the trifling privilege of a candy present 
to the children left, which I was rummaging to find, 
its size obviously limited owing to the peculiar chance 
of misconstruction of motive. I listened, smiling down 
at the blue eyes turned up to mine, the red lips inviting 
their owner’s presence being that I had forgotten to. 

“Tessy an’ me’ll bofe turn — an’ Wover,” the latter 
anent a fine canine specimen of Newfoundland breed, 
idly sleeping in the shadow of the giant willow’s base. 

The coin fell into my pocket from fingers suddenly 
grown nerveless, as I bent to the child, and, almost a 
full minute looked at him, at “ Tessy,” and at the woman 
who had bent to help the little girl gather her play- 
things. And during that time the full force of a single 
wo d was struggling to rise from the subconscious to the 
conscious brain. 

Tessy; Tessy;^^l repeated over and over, slightly 
audible, gazing meanwhile, — staring would be the 
precise word — at a single spot on the ground. Some- 
where I had heard that name; somewhere. Not for 
a moment did it occur to me that perhaps in the casual 
reading of the letter found on the dead miner’s body 


124 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


the word had occurred Nor could I well have sub- 
stantiated my theory in that premise just then. Had 
I been usually rational, lucid, my memory would not 
have failed me thus, but the exigencies of the occasion 
were such to one in my condition of body and mind 
— that I even now do not wonder that my brain refused 
to recall acutely any minor happening of the past days. 

^‘Tessy” I repeated, still louder, almost savage in 
my desperation, and the little girl and the woman turned 
full face to me, the former’s eyes dark as the Vision’s 
I had seen in the window. 

“ Sir,” piped a girlish voice, but I paid no heed. My 
weakness, for which Lowden had suggested this gallop- 
ing hither and thither, had suddenly asserted itself. 
I was trembling, and by the look on the woman’s face, 
and the stare on the girl’s, I knew I was pale to death- 
ness. 

“Where have I heard it? ^Tessy\ ‘Tessy.’ 

1 still failed to grasp the elusive thought. The woman 
caught the little girl’s hand, and motioned by her head 
to the boy. Ah of them moved slightly distant from 
me, and stopped. The girl’s form standing at the dis- 
tance, in the full glare of an evening sun, was so like 
another in miniature, I fancied. 

“Tessy,” I repeated again, but Tessy only moved 
the further away, clinging to the woman’s skirts. Then, 
giving the lie to an ill assumed composure I uttered 
doud: “My God! can it be that my search is ended?” 

I uttered that sentence not in irreverence. Reader, 
believe me: rather in prayer, solemn invocation that 
my thought be substantiated. Seeing the startled look 
on the woman’s face I tried to regain composure. 


BENEATH A WILLOW TREE. 


125 

“Pray, pardon me,” I said; ‘^the child mentioned a 
name that startled — that — er — ” 

I floundered around. Coherence of thought seemed 
suddenly to have left me. My whole being, mental and 
physical, seemed to have centered on one sole idea. In 
my effort after composure I went nearer and patted 
gently the little boy’s head. 

“What did you say?” I asked. 

He repeated his suggestion. 

The old weakness came again, but I struggled against 
it. I stepped to the little girl, smiling — thin disguise 
of tumultuous heart — and asked: 

‘Ts your name Tressy, my dear?” 

^‘Yes, sir,” came promptly. It was obvious the child 
was well trained. 

I stammered in my endeavor to find a plausible way. 
I did not care to make a premature fool of myself, 
though several times I felt prompted to take the girl 
up and shout for sheer joy. Conservatism came flood- 
ing back in time to save me from making a needless 
idiot of myself. “Tressie,” indeed! I nor my Helen 
had no “Tressy,” and the name — even had we — 
was not uncommon. 

I turned to the woman, ashamed of my unwarranted 
outburst, having long ago learned the lesson of taking 
nothing in this world for granted, unless I desired to be 
disillusioned later by finding it not substantiated by 
facts. 

The woman was now more composed than I. But I 
determined to end conjecture. If — as a few straws 
pointed — this death- wind blew in the woman’s direc- 
tion, she had to know it sooner or later. If my sup- 
position proved false it would not add a great deal to 


126 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


the misery she already endured, and anyway, ‘‘it will 
clear the be-fogged atmosphere,” thought I. 

I began by asking the woman what was her husband’s 
name. 

“Oakley,” she said, and the old drawn look of dread 
came again to her face. 

“I’m wrong,” I said inaudibly. Then it suddenly 
occurred to me: but the nickname, or rather the ab- 
breviation of “Robert” is “Bob,” of “William,” 
“Bill” or “Will.” Perhaps Oakley is his surname. 

“You did not address him so in your letters?” I 
asked, in my heart hoping she did. But my desire was 
not to be granted. She voiced the fatal word: 

“We always call him ‘Bob,’ ” with a sweet reminis- 
cent smile playing about her eyes, her lips. 

The word struck me like a bullet. Its force numbed 
me to my very soul, as I thought: “Oh, God, how soon 
must that smile change!” And it must have shown 
on my features. The woman’s eyes pierced me: 
“You’ve come on a sad mission,” they said, but her 
tongue could not speak the words. I knew not how to 
state what I knew. I parleyed thus: 

“Does ‘Bob,’ as you call your husband, work for 
Morgan and Tyler, of Indianapolis?” I asked, using 
the present tense by choice, until uncertainty was all 
removed. 

She nodded’ now paler than I. 

“And you have not heard from the man — your 
husband, ‘Bob,’ since he left a town in Washington 
County, Pennsylvania, for another in Allegheny 
County, same state?” I prompted. 

This also she affirmed, and her affirmation crushed 


BENEATH A WILLOW TREE. 


127 


out almost the last fragment of hope within me. She 
did not notice it, and I was not positive — yet. The 
mines contain many ‘"Bobs,” and they are ever on the 
move from field to field; few trades are subject to more 
migration. I pleaded to gain time: ‘Will you please 
sit down? . . I am not — not as strong as I 

might be, and the heat — ’’ 

She suggested water, and while she went to the house 
for it I moved my chair to a cooler spot, still nearer the 
tree, and glanced furtively at the letter I had brought 
from the dead stranger. But as before it gave me no 
positive proof, and I determined on withholding it un- 
til it and what the woman had to say should coincide, 
or if they failed to do this to my complete satisfaction 
I would let the letter remain undiscovered to the little 
group. Could you. Reader, blame me? 

She returned with the glass of water, and giving it 
to me said: 

“Sister said perhaps I’d better ask you into the front 
room because,” the woman took care to inform me that 
it wasn’t because Sister had any desire to make my 
acquaintance, but, ‘ ‘because you are likely a member of 
Bob’s Company.” 

I couldn’t see how the woman reached such conclu- 
sion — unless she thought my words of the day before 
untruth. “But perhaps she had good reason for 
thinking all men’s assertions crotchety until she has 
found them stable.” Then, to myself also: hardly 
repressing a smile at the frank expression: “It is better 
just now that I let that impression remain.” Unable 
to do any better I partly prevaricated by saying: “It 


128 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


is that fact, my dear woman, which has brought me 
here.” 

Gladly would I have brought the knowledge to the 
woman sooner, but I could not encompass my desire. 
Obviously she had suffered enough as it was. I had 
hoped for my words to prepare her in a measure for 
what was, I thought, surely to come, but instead she 
exclaimed: 

‘‘Oh, my! Bob hasn’t done anything wrong, I hope!’ ’ 
her mind evidently running on impossibilities, taking 
her husband’s position with the company into account. 

I quickly reassured her on that point, adding: ‘‘The 
worst he has done is what all brave men will do, and 
so far as I may judge, he has the too frequent reward of 
heroism.” 

I prepared for alarm : I saw a dark pair of eyes light 
with gladness! The woman had misconstrued my 
words. ... I could not tell her point blank: 
“Madam: your husband is in his grave, ” for I did not 
know for a certainty, although many things pointed to 
it. 

The little boy ceased playing, and, with that quick 
familiarity of child life came up to me and put his little 
hands on my knees, his eyes resting on mine, wonder- 
ingly, full of trust — and peace. In a less pliant way 
I tried to acknowledge his friendliness. 

“Then you intend going to the great big city, some- 
times — Indianapolis do you mean, Little Boy?” 

“No, tir,” he replied. “We’re doin’ to w’ere Aunt 
Helen lived, aint we Ma ?” 

“Ma” nodded, I dimly remember. Sparks of terror 
and gladness were blinding me, as I watched and 


BENEATH A WILLOW TREE. 


129 


listened to the lisp of childhood forging this chain of 
destiny. My emotions and my method of dealing with 
the unusual matters were, I frankly admit now that 
all is over, not the emotions nor the method of a ration- 
al human being. I was just then decidedly irrational, 
and eager. I listened to the child. 

“And Aunt Helen’s doin’ to take me an’ Tessy to see 
w’ere dey buwwied Uncle George . . . dat’s 

Tessy’spapa. . . ” 

For the moment I had forgotten the woman before 
me, as well as the letter reposing in my pocket, and the 
oft returning, and as frequently crushed, desire to take 
it therefrom to say to the woman what I found beyond 
me; for the cruel marks of the improvised morgue were 
on it. Robert Oakley’s effects, be they never so small, 
bore the same letter and number as his person. Also 
gave they mute evidence in brief wording that death had 
claimed the owner, and not deeming it necessary I had 
not removed them. I turned to the woman, using 
every effort I knew, including the biting of my tongue 
the sinking of my nails into my palms, and several 
other means, I remember, to crush down my desire 
to be precipitate. I had waited so long, I could surely 
abide one more m'nute, even though it seemed a day. 
I queried, almost calmly: 

“What is your sister’s name, that sister in the house, 
yonder — the mother, you say of this girl ? ” ^ 

“Helen,” she replied. 

I clutched at the seat, otherwise in the extremity of 
my weakness I must have fallen. My mind, deluded 
hitherto by false anticipation, soon recovered itself. 


130 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


and partial equanimity replaced physical weakness with 
a stronger feeling. It was well that this was so, or the 
sudden confirmation of my wildest hopes was, indeed, 
sufficient to unseat reason by excessive joy. 

“Was your maiden name Furness?^’ 

She replied simply: “Yes,” looking hard at me. 

My mind failed to fully grasp the pivotal importance 
of the word at the instant it was uttered. In a semi- 
dazed manner there percolated upon me the informa- 
tion that my travels and disappointments were ended 
in this unlooked-for place. In vain moments I had 
conjured a climax and environment befitting an occa- 
sion so deeply centered into my life; if lacking preten- 
tiousness, at least tragic. It was neither. Those little 
walls, then, held all that was dear to me in this world ; 
all that years of persistent effort had failed to bring 
had accidentally, providentially, been thrust upon me. 
My cup of joy was surely here to fill, and for another 
sorrow. But that was crowded out. There came a 
fleet suggestion that all I could do or say would not in 
her case change the fact; yet with regard to another 
and myself realization of the fullest truth could not 
come too soon. I looked at the woman — the child, 
and rose hurriedly, moving toward them, sure at last. 

“Tressy! my child — my child!” I cried, as the 
woman, alarmed for my senses, watched me take to my 
breast the little girl, pale with fright, soothingly whisper- 
ing to her that I was her Papa, and foolishly asking her 
if : she did not know me ! Sarah looked on alarmed. 

“Oh, is there anything wrong — with — with — 
you ?” 

“Nothing; thank God; nothing!” I cried; “all, 
instead, is right, — except — except — ” 


BENEATH A WILLOW TREE. 


131 

I could not find in my heart room — just then — 
for words I knew must come later. I could not plunge 
that simple, trusting soul into the very deepest laby- 
rinths of human gloom, when, at the same minute, 
through her and hers I had risen, after years of effort, 
to the sunlight of human joy. Good news only suffers 
by delay, thought I, and delayed the bad by deliberate 
intention. 

I took the woman’s arm — my sister’s arm — in 
mine, and, she, resenting the unexplained familiarity, 
tried to displace it. But joy had brought vigor. I moved 
her, compulsorily, toward the cottage. She asked me 
almost in one breath what was my meaning for acting 
thus, and had I news of Robert. To both I replied 
rather incoherently, but sufficiently lucid for the woman 
to understand that my intentions were perfectly proper 
and had in them no taint of that kind of insanity she 
feared. She stood still, looking at me. 

“Oh, it can’t be that you’re George,” she exclaimed 
“it can’t be. He’s been dead — dead — these many 
years — why, before Tressy was born.” 

We had stopped a moment, scarcely knowing what 
we did. “ He was a young man, too, and you,” looking 
upward at my gray hair, “are — ” 

“DeaJ — dead — ” I echoed, “but death,” I remem- 
bered saying, “is but the prelude to a larger, better 
life.” I felt no desire to argue or explain that which to 
me was now overwhelmingly positive. I knew she 
would understand later. 

We had reached the cottage door, the two children 
open-eyed, in wonder, watching us. Neither child felt 
equal to the courage necessary to follow “such a strange 
man,” as my own Tressy later confessed to calling me. 


XII. 

A Dark Red Rose. 

And when stern deaths with skeleton hand 

Has snatched the -flower that grew in our hr east ^ 

Do we not think of a fairer land, 

Where the lost are found, and the weary at rest? 
Oh, the hope of the unknown Future springs. 

In its purest strength o?er the coffin and shroud! 
The shadow is dense, hut faith! s spirit-voice sings 
“ There^s a silver lining to every cloud F 

—Eliza Cook. 


T ITTLE may I say here of my meeting with Helen. 

The Reader may better imagine than I describe 
the tumultuous emotions, as I told of my life from the 
day I had last seen them until then ; how I had learned 
of Oakley’s death; of my wanderings through many 
states. There stirs that within the human breast at 
such times which never comes again — emotions so 
reverential, so deep, as to be past portrayal. 

Paradoxically, it was a joyful meeting; yet, sad, oh 
how sad! Sunshine and shadow were, as they often 
are, closely allied. The night went swiftly by — for 
me. I listened with rapt attention to Helen’s version 
of her flight from home, and fully concurred in the 
validity of her reasons for such action. Also learned I 
that Mrs. Furness had eventually forsaken the family, 
but that the children were fortunately all large and able 
to take care of themselves. 


A DARK RED ROSE. 


133 


It was with reluctance I left them long enough to go 
back to the town’s centre to cancel my self-imposed 
mission by telegraph, and order that within the next 
twenty hours the most imposing granite shaft obtain- 
able with wording I had * ‘repeated,” to insure correct- 
ness, be erected over the spot where Robert Oakley 
lay. The conventions of the Busybodies held at home, 
Helen and the children, much against my will. Further 
instructions I also gave, which left no doubt but when we 
would pay his resting place a visit, the remembrance of 
him, typified by words truthfully possible only to such 
a man, would be an honor to us and the noble soul 
whose body reposed beneath them. 

As I went out of the gate at the garden end I met 
Bobbie, the very miniature of his father, if we may 
believe the brief description given me — then. 

The little fellow was playing “horse” by himself, 
whipping his own high-stockinged legs into faster gait. 
The women had taken the dog to the kennel for the 
night. Bobbie ran toward me, and I was prompted to 
take him with me but for Helen’s extreme abhorrence of 
such a move at that time. 

He asked if I were going back to the city, and I as- 
sured him I wasn’t — that night, but that when I went 
he, too, should go to see the big houses, and stay with 
me as long as he liked. 

His big blue eyes opened wide as he turned his face 
up to mine in wonder, doubtless the little mind back of 
them conjuring pictures of what the “big houses” were 
like. His free hand stole into mine, and he whispered 
confidentially : 

“I shall take Wover, too.” 


134 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


I acquiesced. 

“An^ Tessy.” 

I was also ready to agree to that. Then his mind 
suddenly grasped the faint possibility of the absent 
papa being left, and he added: while still clinging to my 
hand as I moved: 

^T won’t dow widout him. ” 

“All right,” I promptly agreed, eager to leave the 
little fellow, and seek the completion of my purpose in 
the town. He still clung to me, however, looking up 
into my face with an apparent presentiment that I might 
yet do him a wrong either by taking from him some- 
one or something he loved, or by omission reach the 
same — to him — undesirable end. And that look, my 
Reader, had I ever wronged Somebody’s Child, 
or contemplated it, would have burnt with the fire of 
Trustful Innocence to the last recess of my soul! As 
I looked into the limpid depths of that child’s eyes I 
felt glad that no action of mine had ever unnecessarily 
deprived such an one of bread either directly or indi- 
rectly. I felt a song of thanksgiving surge upward 
from my heart that as the opportunity offered, I had 
grasped it to have such as little Bobby well fed, suitably 
clothed, and trained for useful citizenship. My check 
had at times made this possible in the child’s own home, 
when the Bread-winner had perhaps for all time been 
taken from the Ranks of Toil, and yet was still Spartan- 
like endeavoring to train, to keep, to educate the little 
group to grow into good women and good men, morally 
and physically. I was glad at that moment that no 
opportunity which offered was by me refused. Nor 
did I forget that brave men, self-sacrificing. God-fearing 


A DARK RED ROSE. 


135 


and Human-serving, give in many admirable in- 
stitutions the same care, and on a larger scale have the 
same purpose toward little defenceless children. I 
had found it most easy to be blind to the existence of 
such Institutions, or to draw in my purse strings with 
my fingers while my tongue shouted: “Creed!” for- 
getting if I would, that the uplift of Humanity is really 
such regardless of the name it takes. One series of 
questions alone did I ask: Is it necessary? And with 
a finger that should wither our civilization they pointed 
to the little ragamuffin, of Bobbie’s age and larger, 
sleeping in coal bin or in a box, eating or starving as his 
child fortune fluctuated. I was satisfied. Then: Do 
they clothe them and feed them? and they answered 
by taking me from end to end to see with my own eyes. 
Yet still, not wholly convinced, I asked: 

“What is the Harvest?” 

And they showed me a record of good citizenship, 
good workmen, useful to their town, their country, to 
their families when married, a record which carries 
shame to the centre of a National or State Law which 
makes no adequate provision for these w'^aifs, “just 
similar to you, my dear little fellow,” said I, bending 
to Bobbie, “little chaps without a father, or worse ’ ’ 

Live I to be a hundred I shall never forget the look 
of that child when I inadvertently blurted the truth 
regarding his Papa. My mind wandering on other 
things I had allowed it to slip off my tongue’s end, and 
tried to recall it when it was too late. Otherwise a 
well-behaved little chap as boys go, yet he struck at me 
viciously with the tiny whip he carried, and pulling 
his hand abruptly from mine stood apart glaring half- 


136 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


defiantly: Nature’s prompting the young to self-pro- 
tection; the instinct of the male to‘ward off the destroyer 
of its species. 

‘T have dott a Papa, too,” he pouted, at once ashamed, 
I could see, of his outburst — perhaps more fearful of 
the result if his mother should get to know it, ‘‘only he 
aint dott work, yet, an’ he tant turn home . . he 

sends me a dime every pay day, so he does,” he whim- 
pered. 

His head was bent, and he was not alone trying to 
keep a brave front. But I must needs leave him, and 
acquiesced outwardly in his desire to have a Papa. 

‘T made a mistake, that’s what I did, Bobbie,” I 
told him placing my hand on his shoulder, “but we’ll 
fix it,” I added more cheerily. 

I pulled from my pocket a new silver half-dollar, 
and held it toward him, saying: 

“It’s just this way. Bob ” 

He looked up, pleased. 

“Shall I call you ‘Bob’? That’s a man’s name 
isn’t it?” 

He smiled. He nodded, and I reiterated: 

“It’s just this way:” handing him the coin, “Dad’s 
been and forgot to send Little Bob ” 

Again he stopped me. 

“No, not ‘little’, ” straightening his shoulders; “I’m 
just ‘Bob.’ ” 

“All right, then,” said I hurriedly, “Dad’s a machine- 
runner, and they and those miners often do strange 
things and forget to come home. For instance here’s 
Dad been and forgot to come home for five pay days, 
nor sent Bob his pay-day money and I’m going to lend 


A DARK RED ROSE. 


137 

you all of it at once, and you can pay me back when he 
comes . . . how’s that?” 

An innocent, trusting smile lighted the features which 
but a moment agone were ruffled with impotent wrath, 
eyes dancing, and with a bare “Thank you, tir,” he ran 
off to take Tressy and the dog to a candy and peanut 
shop. 

But I didn’t smile as I went down the hill to the 
town. And I wondered: 

“What if I, indirectly, or directly brought about a 
multiplicity of result like that,” and my heart, on one 
hand condemning, on the other reached forth the palm 
of pity. 

“The mills of the gods,” I quoted, and tailed it 
anew: “on the screening day mesh fine.” Conscience 
and eternity are adequate. Forgive and — prevent. 

As I climbed the hill on my return to the cottage, 
Helen and Tressy met me, the former’s dark eyes beam- 
ing with the light of new love. My daughter was diffi- 
dent. She placed her hand in mine, but very lightly, 
as if still half afraid. Sarah — poor soul — had tear- 
fully begged Helen to go alone to meet me. She would 
re-arrange our tiny bed-room for the single night, or, 
perhaps, two, we intended to remain there, placing a 
cozy “springing cot,” Helen called it when telling me, 
in her Aunt Sarah’s room for our Tressy. Hitherto 
“she has always slept with Mamma,” Helen smiled, 
placing her arm in kind motherly fashion over Tressy’s 
shoulders. The child was full of wonder, and not 
altogether willing to acquiesce. It was hard to give up 
the sole prerogative of years — of a lifetime — for her. 
Still deeper grew the wonder when her mother attempted 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


138 

falteringly to explain that henceforth her room must 
be different from ours, separate, apart. She was molli- 
fied in part when I promised her an altogether more 
luxurious apartment “for her very own” than even 
her mother’s and my room with all its tastiness. It 
was hard for the child to conceive of anything better 
than that. 

When we reached the cottage we found that Sarah 
had indeed been busy. A complete transformation had 
taken place. Sweet-scented bed linen had mysteriously 
come from hidden recesses of a spacious chest, for 
Sarah, and Helen, were both of that class of housewives 
who are always prepared in the way of reserves. Poor 
Sarah! It was plain every minute she had worked — 
for our greater pleasure — she had cried. It was hard 
for Helen and me to keep back the welling tears of 
sympathy. 

The children early went to bed. For awhile Sarah 
remained with us, but womanly intuition took her also 
to rest — I will not say sleep — shortly after Tressy 
had left us. My wife and I sat on a soft hummock of 
grass; full in the horizon the harvest moon rose all 
resplendent in her silvery gorgeousness. Above us, 
and wrapping our forms completely in its embrace, 
shimmered a shadowy elm, the friction of its slightly 
rustling leaves the only sound. In the cottage we had 
seen the last flitting of Sarah’s lamp go past the window 
facing us, and, reaching the farther room where Helen’s 
sister slept, it had gone out. The night was far ad- 
vanced. Scarcely a light shone in the black-looking 
piles which denoted the town dwellings. The moon 
rose higher and the shadows about us grew deeper. 


A DARK RED ROSE. 


13^ 

and the night was sensuously warm, and fragrant with 
many flowers and new- mown clover of a field adjoining. 
For Oakley had chosen his home amid the fields. 

Deeply moved with the intense love she bore me — 
almost, I feel sure, equally intense as the first night I 
had held her to my bosom — Helen laid her head, 
tired, in part, in passion more, on my breast. My arm 
encircled her, her hand in mine, her warm, pure breath 
awoke the long dormant desire I had thought buried. 
A rose — dark almost as the raven hair it nestled 
among — in the shadows — exhaled its perfume and 
brushed my cheek as I bent to kiss her rosy lips. 
The beating of her heart was so tumultuous I feared 
for the effect of so strong emotion. 

“It’s a kind that never kills,” she replied in a sweet 
whisper. 

So I kissed her again, and laid my coat at the tree 
base that she might lie recumbent, and still remain to 
enjoy the beauties of that unusual night. 

“If you, too, will lie here,” she said; and to please 
her I lay beside her. , 

I know not the exact hour we fell asleep; I only know 
our perfumed bed within the walls had not been occu- 
pied. Helen was first to awake. She touched me gently 
and I awoke startled for a moment only. Her smil- 
ing, blushing face soon re-assured me. She pointed 
without speaking to the great red disc lying on the dis- 
tant hilltops beyond the town’s farther side, and stood 
up to re-arrange her disentangled hair, and the rumpled 
folds of her light skirts. Like a pair of bashful lovers — 
which indeed we were — guilty of some great indis- 
cretion — we stole quietly into the house. While 1 


140 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


arranged much business Helen lighted the coal fire, 
and prepared breakfast, an hour or so later calling, 
to join us at the breakfast table, the three loved ones 
from the upstairs room. 

The following day Sarah, Helen, the two children and 
I, started on a lengthy journey. Sadness and pleasure 
were uncommonly mingled with us all except the little 
ones. 

Far from the city, its smoke, its noise, with feelings 
of worshippers at a holy shrine, we breathed the per- 
fume of the upland city of the dead. Sunset of a beauti- 
ful day was approaching. From a broad piece of a 
gradually uprising ground a tapering spire parted a 
distant grove of trees looming dark against the fast 
reddening sky. To the right lay a green meadow, to 
the left the graveyard. With melancholic thoughts — 
Sarah, especially, so wrought that distress near over- 
came her strength — we walked between long rows of 
the dark mansions which we, too, must so soon occupy. 
Turning, we passed rows of cypress waving sadly and 
funereal above the monuments of stone. 

“This way,” said our guide, as we followed, quietly 
and grief-stricken, where he led. 

“This way,” I echoed, quoting from some passage 
I had long ago read, I knew not where; “this way the 
pride, the pretension, the ambition, the vanities of 
humanity end. This way animosity is buried, service 
made powerless, love loses its potency for evil or good, 
virtue and sin alike await the last call of an all-power- 
ful God.” 

We came to a well-cared-for lot, in which flowers and 
trees were regularly planted, covering with their beauty 
the base of a towering shaft. The city men who deal 


A DARK RED ROSE. 


141 

in these mementoes can do well in a very short period 
I knew that, but I was indeed astonished at the extent 
of their work. 

The trees of the vicinity stirred as a slight wind swept 
through them. A faint hum of the distant city came 
with it: incongruous reminder of that other world. 
The women by my side sobbed piteously, and my own 
eyes were not dry. The form below us we had all loved. 
I, who had not seen him, felt for him as for one of the 
same flesh — of the same parents. Beneath the out- 
spread hand of an allegorical figure exemplifying his 
life there lay deep in the everlasting stone one word — 
the only one I had caused to be engraved: — NOBIL- 
ITY, and beneath it was later copied as well as the 
chisel could my simple tribute. 

Reverently I laid my wreath upon the mound; Helen 
and Sarah did likewise. Plucking a small bunch of 
leaves I turned. The sun was fast sinking below the 
distant hills; the faint breeze had ceased to murmur 
in the cypress boughs. I took each sister’s arm in 
mine, and slowly we retraced our steps to the carriage 
at the gate. A few minutes later we were well on our 
way to the deep valleys from whence came stronger and 
stronger the voices of Life. 

Thus ended our first visit to this beautiful spot, where 
frequently, in after days, we wended, and where, in 
God’s own time, we too, shall be laid, whether or not 
we shall deserve the inscription that covers our future 
companion in silence. 


142 


THE TIDE OF DESTINY. 


Later Bobbie went with me to the city, this time to 
remain there for awhile, and not simply pass through 
it on a sad way elsewhere. Time in a measure had 
wooed away the abnormal grief, and brought a normal 
desire for the pleasures of life. The only reminder of 
our recent bereavement was the mourning worn by the 
women and children, and for us all an inner conscious- 
ness of the frailty of human life. 

I recall vividly the first time we traveled thus to- 
gether, and what a feeling of buoyant pride welled up 
within me each time I looked across the aisle where sat 
my daughter, who, I can truthfully say, I cared for nor 
loved one bit more than the little boy whose father had 
cared so well for mine. To the World in the new life 
as they had been to themselves in the old, they were 
as brother and sister. Although dissimilar in looks, 
in traits they were alike — thanks to mutual training. 

The two days we spent away from home were ever- 
to-be- remembered by the little folks even more than us; 
and with a joyousness long missing we returned to the 
old station to go south along that river whose banks 
were fraught with much memory for me, of incident 
depressing and otherwise. The car was crowded with 
folks from the big mill towns, and Bobbie sat on my 
knee, Tressy on Helen’s. Sarah shared the latter’s 
seat, and gazed pensively across the curving water. 
And when I occasionally turned it would be to see 
Helen’s dark eyes looking over my way with a wistful 
girlishness which showed plainly as words that she 
begrudged even so slight a parting from the presence 
so long denied. At times a puff of soft south wind 
would rush inward, and playing among the raven 


A DARK RED ROSE. 


143 


strands would toss them whirling to her neck. This hap- 
pened several times while I watched, and sub-con- 
sciously her hand would steal up to replace it, showing 
the glistening bands of wedlock and of friendship — 
the narrow gold circle I had placed there on our wedding 
«ve, and another of unusual neatness and small size 
engraved with his initials. 

Jealous? 

No! May a Just God who can read all hearts place 
it against me for all eternity if I do not love her more 
for treasuring it! 


THE END. 


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